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MEMENTOS 



OF 



EEV. EDWARD PAYSON, D.D. 



EMBBAOIN& 



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AND SELECTIONS FROM HIS WORKS 



By REV. EDWIN L. JANES, 

AUTHOR OP « WESLEY HIS OWN HISTORIAN,*' AND " CHARACTER AND CAREER OP 

FRANCIS ASBTJRY." 



WITH 

AN INTRODUCTION BY W. B. SPRAGUE, D.D., LL.D. 



WL^lX" 



NEW YORK: 
NELSON & PHILLIPS. 

CINCINNATI: HITCHCOCK & WALDEN. 

1873. 




/f73 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1873, by 

NELSON & PHILLIPS, 
in the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington. 



PREFACE. 



Although Edward Payson has been sleeping in 
the sepulcher nearly half a century, he is still 
held in veneration by many as a Christian min- 
ister of deep devotion, intense earnestness, and un- 
faltering fidelity. His name to such is yet fragrant, 
and awakens devout gratitude to God that such a 
man ever lived, as a model of the true minister, and 
as an illustration of the Spirit and Power of vital 
Christianity. 

But there are others whose impressions of this 
remarkable man have, by the lapse of years, become 
indistinct ; and others still, belonging to a new gen- 
eration, who are without any knowledge of him. It 
is most desirable, therefore, that one whose character 
was so pure, and whose ministry was so full of evan- 
gelical teaching, and fraught with such marked re- 
sults, should be kept before the Christian public. 

The last edition of his works, published in 1849, 
being exhausted, there only remains an Abridged 
Memoir published by the American Tract Society. 
I am obliged to R. W. W. Rand, Publishing Secretary 
of that Society, nephew of Dr. Payson, for his cordial 
concurrence with my work. From this memoir, to- 
gether with the original biography, I have gathered 
the facts relating to the Life and Character of Dr. 



4 Preface. 

Payson as recorded in the following sketch, and 
have, to some extent, presented those facts in the 
language of the biographer. 

In a careful reading of Dr. Payson's Works, 
embracing his Letters, Diary, and Sermons, I have 
found very many diamonds of truth burnished into 
" excessive brightness " by the power of his vigorous 
intellect and vivid imagination, and have put them in 
this casket. 

Among these selections the minister will find seed- 
thoughts for the pulpit ; the parent, instruction and 
admonition ; the young, earnest counsels ; the im- 
penitent, solemn warnings ; and the Christian, such 
views of God and Christ and heaven as cannot fail 
to inspire the soul with faith, hope, and love. 

E. L. J. 



INTRODUCTION. 



I have consented, by request of my highly esteemed 
friend and neighbor, the Rev. E. L. Janes, to write a 
few paragraphs introductory to a work, the parts of 
which have been selected and arranged by himself, 
designed as a memorial of the late Rev. Dr. Edward 
Payson. But for my unwillingness to decline the re- 
quest of a friend, I might find a reasonable apology 
for not attempting this service in the fact that I had 
no personal knowledge of Dr. Payson beyond what I 
gathered from hearing from him a single sermon. 
While I was a student in Yale College — I think it 
was in 1811 — I distinctly remember its being noised 
abroad one evening that Mr. Payson, of Portland, 
was to preach in one of the Congregational churches, 
and my curiosity was so much excited by his high 
reputation that I went to hear him. I remember 
nothing of the sermon, but I was greatly impressed 
by the solemn earnestness of the man, and all that I 
have read and heard of him since has been in har- 
mony with the impressions which I then received. 
Though I was his contemporary in the ministry for 
eight years, I do not remember that we ever met 



6 Introduction. 

during that period, though his name was as a house- 
hold word among the ministers of New England. 

It is the glory of a good man that his usefulness 
survives him. The influence for good which he has 
exerted continues to move on, often in nameless 
and invisible channels, and sometimes receives a 
fresh impulse from the co-operation of those who 
revere his memory. Dr. Payson, during his life, was 
doubtless among the most earnest and faithful of our 
American clergy ; and, as the result of his labors, it 
is safe to presume that he is wearing a bright crown 
among the ransomed. But the influences which he 
originated are still at work, and are destined to con- 
tinue indefinitely ; and it is matter of joy that those 
are found, even beyond the denomination with which 
he was connected, who are more than willing to 
labor to perpetuate them. Dr. Payson's publications, 
during his life-time, were only a few occasional ser- 
mons or addresses, which, though written with un- 
common power, and greatly admired wherever they 
were read, were essentially ephemeral, and quickly 
passed away. But after his death these were all re- 
published, and about twenty years since three large 
attractive volumes appeared, the first containing a 
Memoir of his Life, by the Rev. Asa Cummings, and 
the second and third, nearly one hundred of his own 
sermons. These volumes have had a wide circula- 
tion, and it is understood that the edition is now 



Introduction. 7 

quite exhausted. The Rev. E. L. Janes, of the Meth- 
odist Episcopal Church, having been deeply im- 
pressed by the reading of this work, including the 
Life as well as the Sermons, and feeling that both 
are too precious to pass into oblivion, while there is 
little prospect that they will come to another edition 
in their present form, has furnished the accompany- 
ing outline of his history, and what he deemed the 
most striking extracts from his discourses. The 
volume is one of very great interest, and cannot fail 
to be rendered attractive, by its novelty, even to 
those who have read the original work. 

With all our admiration of Dr. Payson's character, 
we deem it proper to state that the qualities by which 
he was most distinguished were closely allied to 
certain natural endowments which, if not closely 
guarded, interfere essentially with one's comfort and 
usefulness. In his nature there was an unbounded 
earnestness, mingled with somewhat of severity ; 
and while his preaching and his intercourse always 
exhibited the former, the latter was not always ex- 
cluded. But his heart overflowed with love to his 
fellow-creatures, and if, at any time, he became, for a 
moment, restive and impetuous, he was never satis- 
fied with himself until he had made the most ample 
restitution. 

How great a service Mr. Janes has rendered to 
the cause of religion by furnishing this volume we 



8 Introduction. 

may see from its adaptation to remedy certain evils 
now very patent in the Church and the ministry. 
That a strain of preaching, much less direct and pun- 
gent than that of Dr. Payson, is demanded by most 
of our assemblies, admits not of question ; and that 
not a small number of ministers, who range them- 
selves with the evangelical class, are disposed to 
meet this ungracious claim, is equally certain. Let 
this work, on which Mr. Janes has bestowed so much 
labor and care, have a wide circulation, and we may 
expect that the pulpit will give no uncertain sound, 
and that the Church will come up to a higher point 
of zeal and fidelity. W. B. Sprague. 

Flushing, June, 1872. 



CONTENTS 



-♦♦♦- 



PART I. 

SKETCH OF PAYS03TS LIFE AND CHARACTER. 



Page 

Preliminary Eemarks 15 

Pay son's Parentage 16 

Early Developments 17 

Early Literary Training 18 

Awakened by the Death of a 

beloved Brother 18 

An Experiment 19 

His Review of his past Life and 

Covenant Engagement 19 

Worldly Amusements — Rules 

of Action 19 

Makes a Public Profession of 

Religion 20 

Appreciation of his Conversion 20 

An Important Step 21 

As a Bible Student 21 

Earnest Praying and Excessive 

Fasting 22 

Apportionment of Time 23 

Impaired Health — Conflicting 

Emotions 23 

Horrible Temptations 24 

Only Pastoral Charge 25 

Protests Against an Increase of 

Salary 26 

A Successful Rencounter 26 

Intense Earnestness 27 

Zeal and Fidelity Rewarded by 

Success 28 



Page 
Rule in Preparing for the Pulpit 29 
Influence Through the Press. . 29 
Conflict with a Lingering Pride 

of Heart 30 

Humility 31 

Domestic Character 31 

Humor — A Specimen 33 

Intense Sufferings 33 

RemarkablySustainedby Views 

of the Divine Perfections ... 34 
Demeanor under Bodily Suffer- 
ings 36 

Last Scenes of his Life and La- 
bors 36 

Confined to the Chamber of 
Sickness and Death — His Tri- 
umph 38 

Dying Words to the Young 

Men of his Congregation ... 40 
Unparalleled Sufferings and 

Unbounded Joy 41 

Last Agony 42 

Extract from Pay son's Funeral 
Sermon, preached by Rev. 

Charles Jenkins 43 

Concluding Remarks 44 

Pa v son — Bramwell — Fletcher 
— Hedding 46 



10 



Contents. 



PART II. 

SELECTIONS FROM THE WORKS OF EDWARD PAYSON, D.D. 



Page 
Blending the Friend with the 

Parent 49 

A Wise Preference 49 

The Reason of the Confusion 

Stated 50 

Extract from Pay son's First 

Oration, July 4, 1806 50 

Peculiar Temptations and Spe- 
cial Relief 52 

Payson's Appreciation of Pious 

Parents 52 

The Scheme of Redemption 

Glorious 53 

A Motive for Choosing Relig- 
ious Companions 54 

Our Old Friend Bunyan 54 

Spiritual Pride 55 

The Town in an Uproar 55 

Both Sides of the Question. ... 56 
The Ministers of Christ in a Try- 
ing Situation 56 

Primeval Harmony 57 

The Discord and Jargon of Sin 58 
Confidence in God under Trial. 60 
A Minister a Burden Bearer . . 60 

"Jesus, Jesus is All! " 61 

Ardent Desires to Glorify Christ 61 
A Brand Plucked out of the 

Fire 62 

"If I could Borrow the Arch- 
angel's Trump " 62 

A Half-Sleeping, Half-Waking 

Dream 63 

Getting a Wife without Loss of 

Time 64 

Public Prayer a Kind of Devout 

Poetry 65 

A Fault in Public Prayer 66 

How a True Embassador of 

Christ Delivers his Message 66 
Three Things Make a Divine. . 67 



Page 

Extempore Preaching 68 

Satan's Cunning 69 

Meditations on the Priesthood 

of Christ 69 

Professors in Concentric Circles 

around Christ 70 

Growth of Grace in the Heart 

Illustrated 71 

The Thirsty Sinner by the Riv- 
erside 71 

Love for the Absent One 72 

Pardon Impossible without Re- 
pentance 73 

The Criminality of Sin 73 

The Absurdity of Sinners' Ex- 
cuses 74 

A Mediator Rejected 75 

A Newspaper, an Almanac, and 

the Bible 75 

God's Image Reflected by his 

Saints 76 

Good Impressions — Illustration 76 

The High and Low Seat 77 

A Proper Course of Reading for 

Christians 77 

The Son Comforts the Mother. 78 
Closet Duties — Satan's De- 
vices 79 

Weighty Words to a Christian 

Minister 80 

A Proof of Faith in Prayer ... 82 
" Satan has Jumped on to the 

Saddle" 82 

Exalted Views of God 83 

Satan's Questions Answered . . 84 
Inscriptions on Immortal Minds 85 
The Dying Christian on the Last 

Summit of Life 85 

Happiness in a Surrender of the 

Will 86 

The Happy Cripple 86 



Contents. 



ii 



Page 
An Assemblage of Motives to 

Holiness 87 

An Overflowing Fountain. ... 88 

"I Am that I Am" 88 

Eternity of G-od 89 

Love of God 89 

Folly and Absurdity 90 

ARebellious Will— Illustration 90 
An Angel Visitor Astonished 92 
The World the Diana of its 

Inhabitants 92 

Our Treatment of the Word of 

G-od a Test 93 

Neglect of Prayer — Its Practi- 
cal Import 93 

The Sinner's Wish 94 

Christian Experience against 

Infidel Objections 95 

Christianity as a Delusion. . . 96 
Insufficiency of Human Rea- 
son 96 

Natural Religion a Failure .. . 97 
The Height of FoUy and Mad- 
ness 99 

Two Sets of Armor 100 

G-od Meets the Sinner's Ex- 
cuses 101 

A Change of Position — Results 102 

Christ a Magnet 102 

Adam our Federal Head 103 

The Attributes of G-od Har- 
monized in Redemption. . . 104 
A New Lesson for Angels. . . 105 
The Glory that Shines in the 

Gospel 106 

"Glad Tidings! Glad Tid- 
ings!" 106 

Christ an Unrivaled Friend . . 108 

The Sage and the Pupi 109 

The Thfee Occasions of Christ's 

Anger 109 

The Sufferings of Christ Real. 110 

The Power of Love Ill 

Christ's Self-Denial 112 

Christ Satisfied 112 

Christ's Reception of Penitent 

Sinners 113 

Going on to Perfection 114 

Advantages of Possessing 
Christ 116 



Page 
The Bifte entirely Practical. .117 
Earnestness in Prayer a Test. 117 
Symptoms of Spiritual Decline 118 
Impatience at not Receiving 

Answers to Prayer 118 

Praise Procures the Divine 

Blessing . . . 119 

The Communion a Funeral 

Scene 120 

Sympathy with Christ as a Man 

of Sorrows 120 

The Grand Law of Nature. . . 121 
Man can do what God Re- 
quires 122 

Covetousness a Pit without a 

Bottom 122 

A Little Court within the 

Breast 122 

Contemplation of Eternity ... 123 
Death the Porter of Paradise. 123 
Honor and Danger of the Gos- 
pel Ministry 123 

A Thousand Years as One Day 

in Heaven 125 

" O What Must it Be to be 

There!" 126 

The Bereaved Mother Com- 
forted 127 

Doubts Arising from Infirmi- 
ties Removed 127 

11 One Broken Wing " 127 

How Rich the Poorest Chris- 
tian 128 

And the Lamb is the Light 

Thereof 129 

No Night in Heaven 131 

The New Jerusalem and its 

Inhabitants 131 

The Sailor Spoken on his Life 

Voyage 133 

The Bible a Compass, Chart, 

and Quadrant 134 

Drunkard's Rock 134 

A Daugerous Whirlpool 135 

The Straits of Repentance ... 135 

The Bay of Faith 136 

The Highlands of Hope 136 

The Sailor at his Evening 

Watch 137 

The Destruction of the World 137 



12 



Contents. 



Page 
Sir William Jones' Estimate of 

the Bible. 138 

Historic Information of the 

Bible 138 

Antiquity of the Holy Script- 
ures 140 

Unsuccessful Opposition to the 

Word of God 141 

Benefits of the Bible to Our 

Race 143 

Divine Origin of the Bible . . . 144 

The Bible a Mirror 145 

Scripture Precepts — Their Im- 
portance 148 

Instructive Examples 149 

The Bible a Vehicle of Conso- 
lation and Hope 150 

Consequences Resulting from 

the Loss of the Bible 152 

God's Boundless Empire 153 

The Infinite Contrast 154 

The Plan of Redemption above 

Human Conception 155 

Folly of Judging of God by our 

Limited Knowledge of Him 156 
The Reasonableness of Faith. 157 
The World Created for Christ 158 
The Human Race Created for 

Christ 158 

A Proof of Christ's Divinity. . 160 
The Cross the Central Object 

of Creation 161 

Introduction of Sin into the 

World 162 

The Broad and Narrow Way. 165 
How to See our Sins as God 

Sees Them 166 

The Righteousness of Christ — 

How Obtained 170 

Thoughts are Words in the 

Ear of God 172 

Sin an Infinite Evil 172 

Everlasting Punishment — Ar- 
gument 174 

The Folly and Absurdity of 

Pride 175 

Why the Remembrance of God 

is Painful 176 

The Eternity of Those who 
Forget God 177 



Page 

Various Means Employed to 

Save Sinners 178 

Caprice of Sinners in Judging 

Christians 179 

The Natural Affections Chris- 
tianized 180 

An Important Distinction 181 

" He shall See of the Travail 

of his Soul and be Satisfied " 183 
The Happiness of Jesus Christ 185 
The Battle and the Victory. .186 
The Sword of the Spirit in the 

Hand of Omnipotence 188 

The Glory and Majesty of 

Christ 189 

The Prophet's Vision 191 

A Revival Scene 192 

A Desperate and Fatal Game 193 
The Difficulty of Convincing 

Men of Sin 194 

Compassion for the PerishiDg. 195 

The Strange Contrast 196 

Thanksgiving in Paradise. . . . 196 
How Christians Should Keep 

Thanksgiving Day 198 

The State of the World at the 

Second Coming of Christ. . 200 
Christ's Second Coming De- 
scribed 201 

Man Capable of Equality with 

Angels 204 

Man's Capabilities Invest the 

Cross with Sublimity 206 

Motives to Imitate the Angels 207 
The Pangs of Remorse in Eter- 
nity 208 

An Unquenchable Fire 211 

Objections to Future Punish- 
ment Answered 212 

Benefits of the Universal 

Spread of Christ's Kingdom 215 
11 For in Him Dwelleth all the 
Fullness of the Godhead 

Bodily" 216 

Habitually at Ease in Zion. . . 218 

The Alarm Sounded 219 

Fearful Consequences of Not 

Punishing Sin 220 

Superior Advantages of the 
Christian Dispensation 222 



Contents. 



13 



Page 
Despair: Its Nature and Ef- 
fects * 223 

God Listening to the Afflicted 

Penitent 225 

All Classes Invited to the Gos- 
pel Feast 225 

Moral Sublimity of Christ's In- 
vitations 22? 

Merely Human Instrumentali- 
ties Ineffectual 228 

How to Prolong the Yisits of 

the Saviour 230 

Christ's Absence from the 

Church 230 

The Believer's Foretastes of 

Heaven 232 

The Sufferings of Christ a 

Proof of his Love 234 

A Striking Illustration 236 

The Oracles of God 23V 

The Inquirer at the Oracle . . . 240 
Nature and Effects of Godly 

Pear 243 

The Pear of God Controlling 

the Imagination 244 

The Duty of the Church toward 

Children 244 

The Gospel Glad Tidings .... 245 
The Gospel Glorious Glad Tid- 
ings 247 

An Appeal to Christian Min. 

isters 248 

Christ as a Citizen of our World 250 
The Meekness and Patience of 

Jesus in Crucifixion 254 

Christ's Mediatorial Kingdom 256 
The Progress and Prospects 

of Christ's Kingdom 257 

Christ's Ascension 260 

The Human Soul a Palace. . . 262 

Satan's Code of Laws 263 

Satan's Armor 264 

The False Peace of the Sinner 265 
The Sioner's Substitute in the 

Hands of Justice 266 

Man Lost to God 267 

Man Lost to Holiness and Hap- 
piness 268 

The Penal Consequences of 
Sin 269 



The Light that Guides us Back 

to God 270 

The Marshaled Hosts. 271 

God's Highest Claims 272 

Goodness of Heart and Great- 
ness of Mind 273 

A Startling Yiew of the Sin- 
ner's Guilt 274 

The Safe Side 276 

Repentance a Cause of Rejoic- 
ing with God 276 

Why the Son of God Rejoiceth 

Over Repentant Sinners. . . 279 
Similarity the Basis of Com- 
munion with God 281 

In What Communion with God 

Consists 282 

The Christian Joy in Com- 
munion with God 284 

Reasons for Family Worship. 286 
The Picture Not Overdrawn. . 288 
Solemn Questions to Parents. 290 

A Whirlpool 291 

The Power of Example Illus- 
trated 293 

An Appeal to Baptized Chil- 
dren ; 293 

Children Welcomed to the Fold 

of Christ 295 

Parents Guilty of the Sin of Eli 296 
Consequences of Parental Un- 
faithfulness 298 

God's Moral Government Over 

Nations 299 

The Crime of Perjury a Na- 
tional One 300 

A Solemn Caution to Young 

Men 302 

Evils Avoided by Early Piety 303 

The Sublime Contrast 304 

Sound and Important Yiews 

for Yoters 305 

Responsibility of Legislators 

and Magistrates 307 

Mutual Love Between Christ 

and his People 308 

The Happiness of Loving and 

Being Loved 310 

The Infidel Met on his Own 
Ground 311 



14 



Contents. 



Page 
Safety of Believing in the Di- 
vinity of Christ 312 

An Objection Answered 313 

The Safe Side 315 

" How Can a Man Be Too Re- 
ligious?" 315 

The World We Live In 316 

Christmas Thoughts 318 

The Certainty oi Unseen 

Things 320 

" Holiness to the Lord " 323 

The Nature and Claims of Je- 
hovah 325 

The Character of Jehovah. . . 327 
God's Works of Providence 

Demand our Praise 328 

A Deluge of Blessings 332 



Page 

Transient Emotions 333 

God's Works of Grace Soon 
Forgotten 334 

The Character of Our National 
Religion 336 

The Existence of the World 

Accounted For 33? 

"If the Bible Be Net True". 339 
The Certainty of a Future 

Judgment — Argument . 343 

Christ Coming to Judgment. . 344 
The Persons to Be Judged. . . 345 
The Things for Which Men are 

to be Judged 34*7 

First Object that will Rush 

upon the Mind at Death. . . 349 
Mortal, Yet Immortal 349 



MEMENTOES 



OF 



EDWARD PAYSON, D.D 



> 4 i» < 



PART I. 

SKETCH OF HIS LIFE AND CHARACTER. 



Preliminary Remarks, 

During a period of fifty years, embracing the last 
quarter of the eighteenth century and the first quar- 
ter of the nineteenth, the Congregational Church 
of New England was distinguished by a host of 
eminent Divines. Dr. Sprague's "Annals of the 
American Pulpit," Vols. I and II, contain a brief 
biography (not including those referred to in the 
foot-notes) of two hundred and eighteen Congrega- 
tional ministers, whose labors covered more or less 
of the above period, and who were born in New 
England ; namely, one hundred and two in Massa- 
chusetts, ninety-five in Connecticut, fifteen in New 
Hampshire, four in Maine, one in Vermont, and one 
in Rhode Island. Of these, one hundred and thirty- 
three were honored with the titles of D.D. or LL.D., 
conferred, with rare exceptions, by New England 
colleges. 



1 6 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

It is safe to say, that in no one period in the his- 
tory of New England were there more talent and 
enterprise displayed in the cause of education and 
religion, including the missionary cause, than in the 
last and first quarters of the two centuries. Men of 
intellectual might and Christian zeal were found hard 
at work, not only as pastors, but also as tutors, pro- 
fessors, presidents of literary and theological institu- 
tions, missionaries, secretaries, authors, and editors. 
The most of these devoted men were contemporary 
with the subject of our sketch, their ministry extend- 
ing into the nineteenth century, and running parallel 
with his, for a longer or shorter period. 

While the New England hills and valleys were all 
ablaze with the intellectual and spiritual fires that 
emanated from school-house and academy, from col- 
lege and theological seminary, from the pulpit and 
religious press, there was an evangelical fire burning 
in Portland, Maine ; and so bright was the flame as 
to attract distant attention, and so intensely did it 
burn as to consume in a few brief years the devoted 
man who kindled it. That man was Edward Payson. 

Payson s Parentage. 

Edward Payson was born at Rindge, New Hamp- 
shire, July 25th, 1783. His father, Rev. Seth Pay- 
son, was a man of piety and public spirit, somewhat 
distinguished as a clergyman, and favorably known 
as an author. His mother was an intelligent, de- 
voted Christian woman. 

Payson attributed his religious character and influ- 
ence, under God, to the instruction, example, and 
prayers of his Christian parents. Among the earli- 



Sketch of Life and Character. 17 

est impressions made upon his mind by his mother 
was, that it was his duty to become religious in 
childhood. 

Paysoris Early Developments. 

Payson early manifested a remarkable inquisitive- 
ness of mind, which his mother cherished by an- 
swering his almost endless inquiries. In the first 
developments of his moral powers, his infant mind 
grasped the fact that he was a sinner. He was often 
known to weep under the preaching of the Gospel 
when only three years old ! He would frequently 
call his mother to his bedside to answer questions 
respecting his relation to God and a future world. 
It was the judgment of his mother that he was con- 
verted in childhood. It is believed that he never 
neglected private prayer while living under the pa- 
rental roof. 

His early mental developments indicated that he 
would be a man of decision, enterprise, and perse- 
verance. His taste for the sublime was remarkable 
in childhood. During a tempest he might be seen 
on the top of a fence, or some other eminence, while 
the lightnings played and the thunders rolled around 
him, sitting in composure and enjoying the sublimity 
of the scene. 

He was a very good reader at four years of age, 
and could transfer the contents of a book to his own 
mind with remarkable facility. All the books in his 
father's collection and in the town library, suitable to 
his age and attainments, were read before he left the 
paternal home, and made available in his ministry by 
the tenacity of his memory. 



1 8 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

Pay sons Early Literary Training. 

This was conducted principally by his parents, ex- 
cepting the studies preparatory to college, which 
were pursued, in part, at least, at a neighboring 
academy. He entered Harvard College in 1800, at 
seventeen years of age, at an advanced standing, and 
with the reputation of being a magnanimous, honor- 
able, generous youth. Here he was known and re- 
spected for the purity of his morals, the regularity of 
his habits, and his amiable disposition ; as also for 
his mental industry. He had at college the reputa- 
tion of being a " great reader." His fellow-students, 
before knowing the rapidity with which he acquired 
knowledge, and the strength and tenacity of his 
memory, rallied him as having a machine to turn 
over the leaves ; and, at another time, as having left 
off taking out books, because he had read all of the 
thousands in the alcoves of Old Harvard. After 
graduating, in 1803, he spent three years as principal 
of an academy in Portland, and commanded the 
esteem and veneration of his pupils. 

Payson Awakened by the Death of a beloved Brother. 

In the early part of 1804, the death of his brother 
was the means of fixing his attention on religion 
more fully for the rest of his life. In a letter to his 
mother he writes : " Infatuated by the pleasures and 
amusements this place affords, I gradually grew cold 
and indifferent to religion. From this careless frame 
nothing but a shock like that I have received could 
have roused me. I hope, by the assistance of divine 
grace, this dispensation will prove of eternal benefit. ,, 



Sketch of Life and Character. 19 

An Experiment. 

Young Payson made the experiment which most 
are disposed to make before fully consecrating them- 
selves to Christ, and with this result, as stated by 
himself: "In the impracticable attempt to reconcile 
God and the world, I spend my time very unhappily, 
neither enjoying the comforts of this world nor of 
religion ; but I have at last determined to renounce 
the false pleasures for which I pay so dear ; and this 
I should have done long ago, but for the advice and 
example of some whose judgment I respected." 

Payson s Review of his past Life and Covenant En- 
gagement. 
Under date of July 25, 1805, he writes : " Having 
resolved this day to dedicate myself to my Creator 
by a written covenant, I took a review of my past 
life, and of the numerous mercies by which it has 
been distinguished. Then, with sincerity, I humbly 
hope, I took the Lord to be my God, and engaged 
to love and obey him. Relying on the Holy Spirit 
for assistance, I engaged to take the Holy Scriptures 
as the rule of my conduct, the Lord Jesus Christ to 
be rny Saviour, and the Spirit of all grace and con- 
solation as my Guide and Sanctifier. The vows of 
God are upon me." 

Worldly Amusements — Rules of Action. 

To one who urged Mr. Payson to go into society 
and frequent public amusements, he wrote : " Can 
a man walk on pitch and his feet not be defiled ? 
Can a man take coals of fire in his bosom, and his 
clothes not be burned?" 



20 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

In regard to worldly associations and amusements, 
Payson adopted the following simple rules : I. To do 
nothing the lawfulness of which he doubted in any 
degree. 2. To consider every thing unlawful which 
indisposes for prayer and interrupts communion with 
God. 3. Never to go into any company, business, 
or situation, in which he could not consistently ask 
and expect the divine blessing. By the help of these 
rules, he says, " I settle all my doubts in a trice." 

Payson Makes a Public Profession of Religion. 

He joined the Church at Rindge, under the pas- 
toral care of his father, while on a visit to his parents, 
during one of his quarterly vacations, Sept. 1, 1805. 
Soon after he writes to his mother: "As yet I have 
no reason to repent of the step I took while at home. 
I have felt wondrous brave and resolute since my 
return, but I rejoice with trembling. If I know any 
thing of myself, I shall need pretty severe discipline 
through life, and I often shrink at the thought of the 
conflict that awaits me ; but I am encouraged by the 
promise, that my strength shall be equal to my day." 

October 6th he writes : " Since my return from 
Rindge I have hardly known one unhappy mo- 
ment. I enjoy mental peace, and at times happiness 
inexpressible." 

His Appreciation of his Conversion. 

Under the impulse of gratitude, and from a pro- 
found sense of obligation, he writes : " ' Is not this a 
brand plucked out of the fire ? ' Zech. iii, 2. What a 
just and striking description of every sinner! To 
snatch a smoking brand from eternal burnings, and 



Sketch of Life and Character. 21 

plant it among the stars in the firmament of heaven, 
there to shine like the sun forever ! Such a brand 
am I ; a brand yet smoking with the half-extinguished 
fires of sin ; a brand scorched and blackened by the 
flames of hell ! What then do I owe to Him, who 
entered the furnace of divine wrath, that he might 
bring me out ? " 

An Important Step, 

In 1806 Mr. Payson resigned the charge of the 
academy in Portland, and returned to his father's 
house, where he pursued his theological studies, till 
he entered the ministry. This step may be regarded 
as one of the most important of his life. His biog- 
rapher thinks, had he entered at once upon the work 
of the ministry, as he contemplated, he had not been 
the minister that he became. In comparative retire- 
ment, with his father for his tutor, and with an illus- 
tration of the purity and power of Christianity before 
him in the lives of godly parents, he was most auspi- 
ciously situated. 

He appreciated these advantages, and gave him- 
self up to the work of preparation with an exclusive- 
ness and ardor perhaps never equaled. 

Payson as a Bible Student. 

He seems to have concentrated all his powers upon 
the acquisition of scriptural knowledge, and the culti- 
vation of Christian and ministerial graces. He en- 
tertained the most exalted views of the office of the 
ministry, and of the qualifications requisite, and 
sought them with a corresponding zeal. 

He regarded himself not so much as a student of 
systems of divinity, drawn up by men, as a student 



22 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

of the Bible. He regarded these systems with 
jealousy. Doubtless the works of eminent divines, 
which he had already read, exerted some influence 
upon his mind ; but in his independence as a thinker, 
and in his deep reverence for the word of God, he 
placed them all in subordination to that divine word, 
embracing that one book as an adequate foundation 
for his faith, and an infallible guide to duty. 

His reading was confined principally to such writ- 
ings as helped to elucidate and unfold the literal 
meaning of the Bible. In this manner he studied 
the whole of the inspired book, so that there was not 
a verse on which he had not formed an opinion. In 
this way he acquired an unparalleled readiness to 
meet every question, on every occasion, whether pro- 
posed by a caviler or conscientious inquirer. This 
ready knowledge of the Bible gave him the confidence 
of the people, as a man mighty in the Scriptures, to 
confound and silence gainsayers, and to ornament 
his discourses with the brilliant diamonds of truth, 
and to set apples of gold in pictures of silver. 

Earnest Praying and Excessive Fasting. 

Mr. Payson pursued his studies with almost un- 
ceasing prayer, studying theology on his knees, and 
pleading the promises in a prostrate position, with 
the Bible open before him. 

He added much fasting to prayer. His seasons 
of fasting were long and frequent, so much so as to 
injure his bodily health. In after years he saw and 
lamented his error of fasting too long. But he was 
at the time a student and candidate for the holy 
ministry, and desired to comply with the precept, 



Sketch of Life and Character. 23 

"Mortify the flesh, with the affections and lusts." 
He felt that as a servant of Christ he should be the 
master of his own passions and propensities, and re- 
sorted to this scriptural way to gain that mastery. 

It is safer, perhaps, to go to an extreme in this 
direction, than to neglect altogether this essential 
discipline of the body. 

Apportionment of Time. 

Mr. Payson was also too severe upon himself in 
the apportionment of his time, as will be seen by the 
following arrangement : twelve hours to be given to 
study, two to private devotion, two to relaxation, two 
to meals and family devotion, and six to sleep. 

Impaired Health — Conflicting Emotions. 

Payson's health had now become impaired by his 
severe regimen, and also by a fall from a horse, so 
that he writes at different dates : " Was excessively 
melancholy." " Was oppressed with pride and vani- 
ty." " Spent the day in the woods in fasting and 
prayer, to obtain a mortification of my abominable 
pride and selfishness." " More gloomy and oppressed 
than yesterday." "I was greatly oppressed with 
pride and vanity, which made their attack upon me 
in inexpressible shapes." 

Yet interspersed with these gloomy sentences we 
find others, describing a deep, happy Christian ex- 
perience : " God was pleased to fill me with himself, 
so that I was burned up with most intense love, and 
panting after holiness." " Never before had such 
faith and fervency in prayer." " I am as happy as 
nature could sustain." 



24 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

Melancholy, at times, overwhelmed him like a 
thousand monsters, so that his soul was crushed un- 
der it. At other times he was " surprised with visits 
from his blessed Lord, full of sweetness and love." 
His peculiar mental constitution and physical condi- 
tion had much to do with these sudden and frequent 
transitions of religious feeling. Besides his constitu- 
tional predisposition to melancholy, his health had been 
shattered by abstinence, night vigils, and extraordi- 
nary exertions. The sentiment of Bishop Home will 
apply here : Religion was not the cause of his gloom, 
but was his refuge in times of depression. 

Horrible Temptations. 

Payson's peculiar temperament and bodily weak- 
ness made him a conspicuous mark for the infernal 
archer to shoot at. " I thought long since," he writes, 
" that I had endured every thing horrible and dread- 
ful that was ever felt, heard of, or conceived ; but 
I find that the depths of Satan and the depths of a 
depraved and wicked heart are not easily fathomed. 
These unfathomed depths, however, serve to show 
me more clearly the infinite height and depth of 
Christ's love!" ' 

At a later period in his history he explains the 
reason why God permitted him to be so grievously 
tormented in the past : " That I might counsel and 
comfort those of Christ's sheep against whom Satan 
raged violently." 

Under date of Dec. 5, 1823, he writes, "I have 
been sick and laid by for two Sabbaths, but am now 
able to resume my labors. But, O the temptations 
which have harassed me for the last three months ! 



Sketch of Life and Character. 25 

I have met with nothing like them in books. I dare 
not mention them to any mortal, lest they should 
trouble him as they have troubled me. Should I be- 
come an apostate, and write against the Christian 
religion, it seems to me that I could bring forward 
objections that would shake the faith of all the Chris- 
tians in the world. What I marvel at is, that the 
arch-deceiver has not been permitted to suggest them 
to his scribes, and have them published to the world. 
All the atheistical and deistical objections which I 
have met with in books are childish babblings com- 
pared with those which Satan suggests, and which 
he urges upon the mind with a force which seems 
irresistible." 

Pay sons only Pastoral Charge, 

This was in Portland, Maine. He was ordained 
pastor of the Congregational Church of that place, 
Dec. 16, 1807. He served the Church with remark- 
able fidelity and success for twenty years ; indeed, 
lived and died with them and for them. This was 
the more remarkable as he was so uncompromising 
in his preaching and intercourse with his people. 

His remaining in one charge for a lifetime shows 
him to have been remarkably free from a worldly and 
ambitious spirit. It was his prayer that if God had 
any worldly blessings in store for him he would be 
pleased to give him grace instead of them, or change 
them into spiritual blessings. He writes, " I can 
hardly help praying, sometimes, that he would take 
away all he has bestowed, so that I shall not sin 
against such goodness." He felt " to bless God that 
when his roots began to shoot into and cleave to the 



26 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

earth, he plucked them up before they were too deep- 
ly and firmly fixed." 

Payson Protests Against an Increase of Salary. 

We may readily suppose that, possessing, as he 
did, so unselfish a nature, his people would never 
have any difficulty with him about salary. They had 
difficulty, however, but it came from him in the shape 
of strong protests against an increase of the salary 
voted him at the time of his settlement ! And al- 
though he had calls from Boston and New York, 
with higher salary and position, he could not be 
tempted to leave his beloved Portland charge. 

A Successful Rencounter. 

In carrying out his rule "to make none but pas- 
toral visits, and always to have religion recognized in 
every social circle in which he mingled," he once had 
a successful rencounter with a lawyer in Portland 
who ranked high for wealth and influence, but was 
skeptical. When he gave his consent to his wife 
that Mr. Payson might be invited socially to visit 
them, it was on the condition that he should not con- 
verse on religion, nor ask a blessing over his food, 
nor offer a prayer in his house. But so skillfully did 
Mr. Payson manage his host that he did ask a bless- 
ing, returned thanks, read the Scriptures, and had 
family prayer, and all at the request of the master 
of the house ! As the critical moment arrived, Mr. 
Payson inquired of his host, "What writer has said 
that the devil invented this fashion of carrying round 
tea to prevent a blessing being asked ? " 

" I do not know, sir," replied the lawyer, " who it 



Sketch of Life and Character. 27 

was ; but we will foil the devil this time. Please to 
ask a blessing, Mr. Payson." 

This reminds us of an anecdote of the Rev. Ezekiel 
Cooper, who is said to have satirized the fashion of 
handing round tea in this manner. On an occasion 
of the kind he was heard to exclaim, " What a poor, 
helpless creature man is, with a cup of tea in one 
hand, a piece of cake in the other, and a fly on his 
nose, and no means of getting him off." 

Paysoris Intense Earnestness, 

Pay son's experience, prayers, hopes and fears, joys 
and sorrows, indeed his whole ministerial life and 
labors, were marked with an intensity seldom known. 
"My disposition," said he, "is naturally so ardent 
that I can enjoy nothing with moderation ; so that I 
must either be totally indifferent to worldly objects, 
or else love them to such a degree as to render them 
idols." 

He was very jealous for the Lord of Hosts, and 
was a living witness of the power of divine grace, and 
a living reproof to cold and formal professors. The 
indifference of men to their salvation, and the preva- 
lence of wickedness, made " his heart ache, and his 
eyes weep." He expostulated, warned, and entreated ; 
he mourned in secret places, and interceded with 
God to save the people. 

In keeping with this spirit of zeal that burned with- 
in him and blazed around him, he highly appreciated 
revivals — prayed, and fasted, and worked for them, 
and was never satisfied without a revival state in his 
Church. He ardently loved the work of the ministry. 
If he had sufficient strength for the duty, he consid- 



28 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

ered it no favor for a visitor to supply his pulpit. 
It was like a man proposing to eat up a good dinner 
prepared for himself when half starved. " Since the 
failure of my health/' he writes, " I preach but three 
sermons a week ! " 

On being urged by his people to visit Europe for 
his health, with the offer of a free passage, he replied, 
" It would be gratifying to see Old England, but I 
cannot spare the time." 

Payson s Zeal and Fidelity Rewarded by Success. 

Payson's success may be attributed in a great 
measure to his ardent and persevering prayers, and 
the undoubted sincerity of his belief in what he 
taught. Though he drew crowds around him, there 
was nothing of stage effect either in his eloquence or 
personal appearance — no imposing attitudes or ges- 
tures ; no extremes of intonation ; no affectation. It 
was a simple uttering of the deep convictions of the 
heart. It was the eloquence of truth spoken in love. 
The words seemed to come from his mouth encom- 
passed by that glowing atmosphere in which they 
left the heart. He was always in earnest, and im- 
pressed the fact upon his hearers. " It is a glorious 
day to live in," said he ; " so much to be done. I 
would not now exchange a place in the Church below 
for a place in heaven. The longer our time of labor 
is, the better. There will be time enough for rest." 

With such a spirit he could not fail of success. 
In one year of his ministry his Church received an 
accession of seventy-three, and in the year of his 
death seventy-nine. The average number was more 
than thirty-five a year during the whole of his ministry. 



Sketch of Life and Character. 29 

He often performed services for other congrega- 
tions, and went on missionary tours to places not 
having a settled ministry, spending several days in 
arduous labors, and with signal results. 

His agency was also felt in raising the tone of piety 
in all the Churches that could be reached by his in- 
fluence ; and his presence, counsels, example, and 
prayers, gave shape tone, and energy to many public 
institutions of his day. 

Pay son's Rule in Preparing for the Pulpit. 

It was his invariable object to introduce so much 
of the fundamental truths of the Gospel into every 
discourse, that one who had never heard a sermon 
before, and should never hear another, might learn 
from it what is essential to salvation. 

His Influence Through the Press. 

Mr. Payson was mistaken when he said that God 
had denied him the honor of doing good with his 
pen, and of speaking for Christ when silent in the 
dust. 

No man, probably, whose pen was so limited in its 
work has accomplished so much. " The Bible Above 
All Price" was the first production suffered to go to 
press. Myriads of copies have been circulated. His 
"Address to Seamen" was so effectual at the time 
of its delivery that nine thousand copies were printed 
at once, and unnumbered copies since. Also a 
sermon before the Maine Bible Society, entitled 
" The Oracles of God," was a popular discourse, but 
did not reach the extent of popularity or circulation 
as did those just mentioned. Besides, how full of 



30 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

instruction, influence, and inspiration are the preg- 
nant sentences falling from his pen, as contained in 
his Diary and Letters, and given to the world in 
his Biography. Thousands of Gospel ministers have 
doubtless been made wiser and better men, and have 
been stimulated to seek a richer experience, and 
higher devotion to the work of the ministry, by 
reading the published Sermons, and especially the 
Biography, of Dr. Payson. 

Payson s Conflict with a Lingering Pride of Heart. 

" I find," he writes, " scarcely any time to read or 
study, and am constrained to go into the pulpit with 
discourses so undigested, my pride is constantly 
mortified, and though it lies groaning and bleeding 
under continual wounds, it will not be persuaded to 
give up the ghost." 

In a letter to his mother he writes, " You must 
not say one word that even intimates that I am grow- 
ing in grace. I cannot bear it. Every body here, 
whether friends or enemies, is conspiring to ruin 
me. Satan and my own heart will of course lend a 
hand, and if you join them too, I fear all the cold 
water which Christ can throw upon my pride will 
not prevent it from breaking out into a destructive 
flame. As certainly as any body flatters or caresses 
me, my heavenly Father has to whip me for it, and it 
is an unspeakable mercy that he condescends to do it. 
I can easily muster a hundred reasons why I should 
not be proud, but pride wont mind reason, nor any 
thing else but a good drubbing. Even at this moment, 
I feel it tingling at my finger ends and seeking to 
guide my pen." 



Sketch of Life and Character. 31 

Pays oris Humility. 

In the following extract we find true humility ex- 
pressed in one of his beautiful figures : " Could I 
paint a true likeness of Christ, I should rejoice to 
hold it up to the view and admiration of all creation, 
and to be hid behind it forever. It would be heaven 
enough to hear him praised and adored, though no 
one should care about insignificant me." 

In a letter to a candidate for the ministry he ex- 
presses himself thus : " Let those who choose to en- 
gage in such a race (for worldly distinctions) divide 
the prize. Let one run away with the money, an- 
other with applause ; be God's approbation the only 
prize for which I run." 

In alluding to two distinguished characters, who 
asserted that they were never happy until they ceased 
striving to be great, he writes, " My heart saw it and 
consented to it, and now I am comparatively happy." 

In reviewing his life in this same spirit of humility, 
he could say, U I have done nothing myself; I have 
not fought, but Christ has fought for me ; I have not 
run, but Christ has carried me ; I have not worked, 
but Christ has wrought in me ; Christ has done all." 

His Domestic Character. 

He at one time expressed a fear of marrying, lest, 
from his ardent temperament, he should love a wife 
too little or too much. Nor would he be anxious 
about the selection, nor waste his Master's time in 
seeking one, confident that he should certainly have 
a good wife if God saw best. He did marry wisely 
and well, and we here give an extract showing that 



32 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

his heart was as true to his companion as it was, in 
a higher sphere of affection, true to Christ and his 
Church. 

He writes on board of a vessel sailing up the Dela- 
ware in sight of Philadelphia, " The prospects on the 
banks of the river were delightful and cheering every 
moment. The day was fine and the swiftness of our 
motion was agreeable, and, to crown all, I saw God 
in his works, and tasted his goodness in every thing. 
I thought of you almost every moment, and nothing 
but the presence of yourself and the children was 
wanting to make me as happy as I could be in this 
world. Every one on board is in a bustle, and I am 
standing away in one corner talking with my best, 
dearest earthly friend. You, at the distance of five 
hundred miles, have more attractions for me than the 
whole city of Philadelphia, which is spread out before 
me. Kiss the children for me, talk to them about 
me ; love me as I do you. I love you far better than 
I did when I wrote the last letter to you before our 
marriage." 

The qualities of .a tender husband, and of a faithful 
and affectionate father, were uniform in their action, 
and were daily manifested in his household in a man- 
ner that showed the intense interest he felt in the 
religious welfare of his family and domestics. 

He had both religion and good sense enough not 
to be a vain and foolish father, but avoided that dot- 
ing partiality for his children which causes so many 
parents to hold the reins of parental discipline with 
a lax hand. Here is a specimen in which with keen 
humor he takes off the vanity of doting parents. 

" As to baby," he writes, " she is the greatest gen- 



Sketch of Life and Character. 33 

ius and the greatest beauty in these parts. Suffice 
it to say, that she has four teeth ; stands alone ; says 
4 Pa' and 'Ma;' 'no,' 'no/ very stoutly, and has 
been whipped several times for being wiser than her 
father." 

Paysoris Humor — A Specimen, 

After speaking of attacks from other diseases, he 
writes, " Rheumatism next arrived, eager to pay his 
respects, and embraced my right shoulder with such 
ardor of affection that he had well-nigh torn it from 
its socket. I had not thought much of this gentle- 
man's powers before, but he has convinced me of 
them so thoroughly, that I shall think and speak of 
them with respect as long as I live. Not content 
with giving me his company all day, for a fortnight 
he insisted on sitting up with me every night, and 
what is worse, made me sit up too. During this time 
my poor neck, back, and shoulder, seemed to be a 
place in which the various pains and aches had as- 
sembled to keep holiday, and the delectable sensa- 
tions of stinging, pricking, cutting, lacerating, wrench- 
ing, burning, gnawing, succeeded each other, or all 
mingled together in the wildest confusion. 

"The cross old gentleman, though his zeal is some- 
what abated by fomentations and blisters with which 
we welcomed him, still stands at my back, threaten- 
ing that he will not allow me to finish my letter." 

His Intense Sufferings. 

He writes on one occasion, " My flesh trembles 
and my blood almost runs cold when I look back on 
what I have suffered. A very large proportion of 



34 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

my path lies through the valley of the shadow of 
death." 

Parts of his body, including the right arm and left 
side, were singularly affected. They were incapable 
of motion, and lost all sense of feeling externally, 
while in the interior parts of the limbs thus affected 
he experienced at intervals a most intense burning 
sensation, which he compared to a stream of fused 
metal or liquid fire coursing through his bones. 

Remarkably Sustained by Views of the Divine Per- 
fections. 

" God's promises appear most strong, solid, real, 
substantial : more so than the rocks and everlasting 
hills. And his perfections ! what shall I say of them ? 
When I think of one, I wish to dwell on it forever ; 
but another and another equally glorious claims a 
share of my admiration, and when I begin to praise 
I wish never to cease. Let who will be rich, or ad- 
mired, or prosperous, it is enough for me that there 
is such a God as Jehovah, and such a Saviour as 
Jesus, and that they are infinitely and unchangeably 
glorious ! 

"Dec. 19. Had a most ravishing view of Christ 
this morning, as coming at a distance in the chariot 
of his salvation. In an instant, he was with me and 
around me, and I could only cry Welcome ! a thou- 
sand times welcome to my disconsolate heart !" 

After enumerating some special instances of God's 
goodness to him, he adds, " But great as are my 
reasons to love God for his favors, he is infinitely 
more precious on account of his perfections. Never 
did he appear so inexpressibly glorious as he has for 



Sketch of Life and Character. 35 

some weeks past. I have nothing to fear, nothing 
to hope from creatures. They are all mere shad- 
ows ! There is only one being in the universe, and 
that being is God ! May I add, He is my God ! 
I long to get to see him in heaven : I long still 
more to stay and serve him on earth. Rather, 
I rejoice to be just where he pleases, and what he 
pleases. 

Dec. 16, 1817, he writes, "Never before enjoyed 
such a sense of his love, or felt so constrained to love 
him and every thing that belongs to him ; especially 
his word, which I could not forbear kissing and press- 
ing to my bosom. Was perfectly willing to die with- 
out leaving my chamber. Had for a long time a 
melting heart, and came with a broken frame to the 
feet of Christ weeping aloud, and obtained a full and 
sweet assurance of pardon." 

" Sept. 1. While lying awake last night had most 
delightful views of God as a father ; felt that my 
happiness is as dear to him as to myself; that he 
would not willingly hurt one hair of my head, nor let 
me suffer a moment's unnecessary pain. Felt that 
he was literally as willing to give as I was to ask — 
seemed, indeed, to have nothing to ask for. 

" Sept. 19. Last night, while lying awake, had 
more distinct apprehensions of God's greatness than 
at any previous time. Realized little of any thing 
except simple greatness, and this almost crushed me 
to death. I could not move a limb or scarcely 
breathe. Could realize more than ever that a clear 
view of God must be hell to the wicked, for had any 
sense of his anger accompanied this view of his great- 
ness, I could not have supported it !" 



36 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

Pay sons Demeanor under Bodily Sufferings, 

The most agonizing sufferings of body, when ex- 
empted from depression of mind, never rendered 
him the less cheerful and agreeable. His demeanor 
in these seasons of suffering was often such that he 
was rather envied than pitied by his family and 
attendants, being seasons of unusual gayety and 
cheerfulness, and in which he allowed his playful 
imagination to throw a brightness npon the gloom 
of the sick-chamber. 

Last Scenes of his Life and Labors. 

His last sermon was preached from the text, "The 
word of the Lord is true." It was not written, 
of course, but no discourse that he ever wrote was 
more instructive or eloquent. When speaking of 
the trials to which the Bible had been subjected by 
its enemies, never were the mightiest infidels made 
to appear so puny, insignificant, and foolish. " He 
who sitteth in the heavens" could almost be seen 
deriding them. 

When describing the manner in which Christians 
have tried it, his experience aided his eloquence, and 
added strength to the conviction it wrought in the 
minds of his hearers. On pronouncing the benedic- 
tion, he descended from the pulpit, took his station 
in front of it, and commenced a most solemn appeal 
to the assembly. 

" I now put aside the minister," said he. " I come 
down among you — place myself on a visible equality. 
I address you as a brother and fellow-traveler to the 
bar of God." He then gave vent to the struggling 



Sketch of Life and Character. 37 

emotions of his heart in a stream of affectionate en- 
treaty, and requested them, mentally and silently, to 
adopt a series of resolutions touching a belief in and 
practice of Christianity, which he was about to pro- 
pose. Though his withered arm hung helpless by 
his side, yet he seemed instinct with life, and every 
succeeding resolve was rendered emphatic by a gest- 
ure of the left. 

One of his last communion seasons is thus de- 
scribed : " His body was so emaciated by long and 
acute suffering that it was scarcely able to sustain 
the effort ; but his soul, raised above its perishing 
influence, and filled with a joyful tranquillity, seemed 
entirely regardless of the weakness of its mortal 
tenement. His right hand and arm were so palsied 
by disease as to be quite useless, except that in the 
act of breaking the bread he placed it on the table 
with the other hand, raising it as a lifeless weight, until 
it had performed the service required, as if unwilling 
that even the withered hand should be found unem- 
ployed in the holy work ! 

Aug. 5. This day he entered the meeting-house 
for the last time. Twenty years had passed since he 
entered it for the first time as a preacher : then a 
trembling youth, now the spiritual father of many 
hundreds ; then just girded for the warfare, now the 
veteran who had fought the good fight, and was about 
to resign his commission. 

He was supported into the house by his senior 
deacons, and was privileged to witness the admission 
of twenty-one candidates into the Church. He only 
had strength to read "the Covenant " and to say to 
the Church, " I want you always to believe that God 



38 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

is faithful. However dark and mysterious his dis- 
pensations may appear, still confide in him. He can 
make you happy when every thing else is taken from 
you." 

Payson Confined to the Chamber of Sickness and 
Death — His Triumph. 

He was asked by a friend if he could see any par- 
ticular reason for this dispensation. He replied, " No ; 
but I am as well satisfied as if I could see ten thou- 
sand reasons." 

In a letter dictated to his sister, he writes : " Were 
I to adopt the figurative language of Bunyan, I might 
date this letter from the land of Beulah, of which I 
have been for some time such a happy inhabitant. 
The celestial city is full in my view. Its glories 
beam upon me, its breezes fan me, its odors are 
wafted to me, its sounds strike upon my ears, and 
its spirit is breathed into my heart. Nothing sepa- 
rates me from it but the river of death, which now 
appears as an insignificant rill, which can be crossed 
at a single step, whenever God shall give permission. 
The Sun of Righteousness has been gradually draw- 
ing nearer and nearer, appearing larger and brighter 
as he approached, and now fills the whole hemisphere, 
pouring forth a flood of glory, in which I seem to 
float like an insect in the beams of the sun, exulting, 
yet almost trembling, while I gaze on this excessive 
brightness, and wondering why God should deign 
thus to shine upon a sinful worm." 

On being asked, " Do you feel reconciled ? " he 
replied, " O that is too cold ; I rejoice ; I triumph ; 
and this happiness will endure as long as God him- 



Sketch of Life and Character. 39 

self, for it consists in admiring and adoring him. I 
can find no words to express my happiness. I seem 
to be swimming in a river of pleasure which is carry- 
ing me on to the great fountain. It seems as if all 
the bottles in heaven were opened, and all its fullness 
and happiness have come down into my heart. God 
has been depriving me of one blessing after another, 
but as each one was removed he has come in and 
filled up its place. If God had told me some time 
ago that he was about to make me as happy as I 
could be in this world, and that he should begin by 
crippling me in all my limbs and removing from me 
all my usual sources of enjoyment, I should have 
thought it a very strange mode of accomplishing his 
purpose. Now, when I am a cripple and not able to 
move, I am happier than I ever was in my life before 
or ever expected to be. 

"It has often been remarked that people who 
have passed into the other world cannot come back 
to tell us what they have seen, but I am so near the 
eternal world that I can almost see as clearly as if 
I were there ; and I see enough to satisfy me of 
the truth of the doctrines I have preached. I do 
not know that I should feel at all surer had I been 
really there." 

"Watchman, what of the night?" asked a gray- 
headed member of his Church. " I should think it 
was about noonday," replied the dying Payson. 

The ruling passion being strong in death, he sent 
a request to his pulpit that his people should re- 
pair to his sick-chamber. They did so in specified 
classes, a few at a time, and received his dying 
message. 



40 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

Paysoris Dying Words to the Young Men of his 

Congregation. 

" I felt desirous that you might see that the religion 
I have preached can support me in death. You 
know that I have many ties which bind me to earth : 
a family to which I am strongly attached, and a 
people whom I love almost as well ; but the other 
world acts like a much stronger magnet, and draws 
my heart away from this. 

" Death comes every night and stands by my bed- 
side in the form of terrible convulsions, every one of 
which threatens to separate the soul from the body. 
These grow worse and worse till every bone is almost 
dislocated with pain. Yet while my body is thus 
tortured, the soul is perfectly, perfectly happy and 
peaceful. I lie here and feel these convulsions ex- 
tending higher and higher, but my soul is filled with 
joy unspeakable ! I seem to swim in a flood of 
glory which God pours down upon me. Is it a delu- 
sion that can fill the soul to overflowing with joy in 
such circumstances ? If so, it is a delusion better 
than any reality. It is no delusion. I feel it is not. 
I enjoy this happiness now. And now, standing as 
I do on the ridge that separates the two worlds — feel- 
ing what intense happiness the soul is capable of 
sustaining, and judging of your capacities by my 
own, and believing that those capacities will be filled 
to the very brim with joy or wretchedness forever, 
my heart yearns over you, my children, that you 
may choose life and not death. I long to present 
every one of you with a cup of happiness and see you 
drink it. 



Sketch of Life and Character. 41 

"A young man," he continued, "just about to 
leave the world, exclaimed, ' The battle's fought, the 
battle's fought, but the victory is lost forever ! ' But 
I can say, 'The battle's fought, and the victory is 
won — the victory is won forever!' I am going to 
bathe in the ocean of purity, and benevolence, and 
happiness, to all eternity. And now, my children, let 
me bless you, not with the blessing of a poor, feeble, 
dying man, but with the blessing of the infinite God." 
He then pronounced the apostolic benediction. 

Paysoris Unparalleled Sufferings and Unbounded yoy. 

A friend said to him, " I presume it is no longer 
incredible to you that martyrs should rejoice and 
praise God in the flames and on the rack ? " 

" No," said he ; "I can easily believe it. I have 
suffered twenty times as much as I could in being 
burned at the stake, while my joy in God so abounded 
as to render my sufferings not only tolerable but 
welcome." 

At another time he said : " God is literally now 
my all in all. While he is present with me no event 
can in the least diminish my happiness ; and were 
the whole world at my feet trying to minister to my 
comfort they could not add one drop to my cup." 

To Mrs. Payson, who observed to him, " Your head 
feels hot and seems to be distended," he replied : " It 
seems as if the soul disdained such a narrow prison, 
and was determined to break through with an angel's 
energy, and I trust with no small portion of an angel's 
feeling, until it mounts on high. 

" It seems as if my soul had found a new pair of 
wings, and was so eager to try them that in her flut- 



42 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

tering she would rend the fine network of the body 
in pieces." 

Payson s Last Agony. 

On Sabbath, Oct. 21, 1827, his last agony com- 
menced, attended with that labored breathing and 
rattling in the throat which rendered articulation ex- 
tremely difficult. His daughter was summoned from 
the Sabbath-school, and received his dying kiss and 
" God bless you, my daughter." He smiled on a group 
of his Church-members, and exclaimed, with holy 
emphasis, " Peace, peace ! Victory ! " He smiled 
on his wife and children, and said in the language of 
dying Joseph, " I am going, but God will surely be 
with you." 

He rallied from the death conflict, and said to his 
physician, that although he had suffered the pangs 
of death, and got almost within the gates of Paradise, 
yet if it was God's will that he should come back and 
suffer still more he was resigned. He passed through 
a similar scene in the afternoon, and again revived. 

On Monday morning his dying agonies returned 
in all their extremity. For three hours every breath 
was a groan. On being asked if his sufferings were 
greater than on the preceding Sunday night, he an- 
swered, "incomparably greater." He said the great- 
est temporal blessing of which he could conceive 
would be one breath of air. 

Mrs. Payson, fearing from the expression of suffer- 
ing on his countenance that he was in mental distress, 
questioned him. He replied, " Faith and patience 
hold out." These were the last words of this dying 
Christian hero ! Yet his eyes spoke after his tongue 
became motionless. He looked on Mrs. Payson, and 



Sketch of Life and Character. 43 

then rested his eyes on his eldest son with an ex- 
pression which said, and was so interpreted by all 
present, " Behold thy mother ! " 

He gradually sunk away, till, about the going down 
of the sun, his chastened and purified spirit, all man- 
tled with the glory of Christian triumph in life and 
death, ascended to share the everlasting glory of his 
Redeemer before the eternal throne ! 

"His ruling passion was strong in death." His 
love for preaching was as invincible as that of the 
miser for gold, who dies grasping his treasure. 

Dr. Payson directed this label to be attached to 
his breast : " Remember the words which I spake 
unto you while I was yet present with you ; " that it 
might be read by all who came to look at his corpse, 
and by which he, being dead, still spake. The same 
words, at the request of his people, were engraven 
on the plate of the coffin, and read by thousands on 
the day of interment. 

Extract from Payson s Funeral Sermon, preached by 
Rev, Charles Jenkins. 

" I might speak of his gifted intellect ; I might 
dwell on his wonderful powers of combination ; on 
that excursive faculty which, forever glancing from 
earth to heaven, could gather the universe around 
him in aid of his illustrations. But to speak on these 
points becomes not this solemn occasion. He would 
frown on the attempt. He counted 'all things loss 
for Christ/ If I may speak of his character, it shall 
be that character which had so conspicuously the 
Christian stamp. In this respect, grace made him 
great. It wrought a deep work in his soul. The 



44 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

predominant features of his whole mind, for many 
years, were high spiritual views and deep spiritual 
feelings. These tinged, or rather were the element, 
of his thoughts and efforts. His natural ardor of 
temperament doubtless affected not a little his relig- 
ious exercises. It gave them violence and energy. 
His seasons of spiritual elevation were heaven brought 
down to earth ; his seasons of religious depression 
resembled the storms of autumn — sudden, dark, threat- 
ening — leaving a serener and purer sky, but betoken- 
ing that winter is approaching. He was pre-emi- 
nently a man of prayer. There was in his prayers a 
copiousness, a fervor, a familiarity, a reaching forth 
of the soul into eternity, that was almost peculiar to 
himself, and that told every hearer that heaven was 
his element, and prayer his breath, and life, and joy. 
As a preacher it is easier to say what he was not 
than what he was. He was eloquent, and yet no one 
could describe his eloquence to the apprehension of 
a stranger ; it consisted in an assemblage of qualities 
that could be seen and felt, but not described. He 
did not preach himself; his subject always stood 
between himself and audience. Ah ! I will not, I 
cannot, enlarge. Let the thousand voices of them 
who have been brought to the knowledge of Christ 
by his ministrations tell what he was as a preacher/' 

Concluding Remarks. 

We have aimed in this sketch so to exhibit the 
man and minister that his points of character would 
be at once recognized without special analysis. 

We hav eseen him as the precocious child, a good 
reader and thinker at four years of age ; as the peni- 



Sketch of Life and Character. 45 

tent boy, weeping under the preaching of the Gospel 
when only three years old ; as the ardent youth, pur- 
suing his studies with untiring diligence and success ; 
as the Bible student, attaching to the divine records 
an infinite pre-eminence over all other books, and 
seeking, with corresponding reverence and zeal, to 
enrich his heart and mind with its treasures, and 
leaning upon the promises like a pilgrim upon his 
staff, and grasping with a giant faith the perfections 
of Jehovah, and the plan of redemption as therein 
revealed. We have seen him as the conscientious 
Christian, with a nature as sensitive to sin in every 
form as the tender flower to the breath of winter. 
We have seen him battling with the rage, and power, 
and insidious schemes of the tempter to destroy his 
confidence in God and revealed religion, and in these 
terrible conflicts foiling his mighty adversary. We 
have seen him, in his zeal for the glory of God and 
the salvation of men, devoting himself with intent of 
mind, and ardor of soul, and effort of body, seldom if 
ever equaled in the history of the ministry. And 
blending, as he did, a deep and intense Christian 
experience, integrity of principle, and simplicity of 
spirit with dignity of manners, his influence was 
irresistible in his day. And his gifted intellect and 
fertile imagination have given to the world those sub- 
lime thoughts and splendid imagery which have con- 
tributed to perpetuate that influence. We have seen 
him in death strong in faith, giving glory to God, 
with the language of victory upon his lips, and the 
fires of hope blazing in his eye, and the joy of heaven 
filling his soul. 



46 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

Payson — Bramwell — Fletcher — Hedding, 

In reading the Biography of Payson we have been 
reminded of Bramwell, whom he resembled in his 
devotional spirit, struggling mightily with God in 
prayer for the salvation of sinners, and, like him, put- 
ting forth a corresponding effort to save them. 

In the higher life we would associate him with the 
heavenly-minded Fletcher, whom he approximated in 
the heights and depths of Christian experience, his 
soul, like that of Fletchers, glowing with the fires of 
holiness, for which he panted, and which he glorious- 
ly realized. 

In his dying triumph he may be associated with 
his distinguished contemporary, Bishop Hedding. 
Between these two Christian heroes there was a 
very remarkable coincidence in their sickness and 
death, both in regard to the severity of their suf- 
ferings and the greatness and grandeur of their 
triumph. 

Payson suffers and dies with such language as this 
falling from his lips : " Hitherto I have viewed God 
as a fixed star ; bright, indeed, but often intercepted 
by clouds, but now he is coming nearer and nearer, 
and spreads into a sun so vast and glorious that the 
sight is too dazzling for flesh and blood to sustain." 
Among his last utterances were the words, " Peace, 
peace ! Victory, victory ! " 

Hedding suffers and dies exclaiming, " God has 
been wonderfully good to me. His goodness has 
been overwhelming, overwhelming ! I never saw 
such glory before, such light, such clearness, such 
beauty ! O what glory I feel ! It shines and burns 



Sketch of Life and Character. 47 

all through me ! It came upon me like the rushing 
of a mighty wind as on the day of Pentecost !" 

If in heaven, as on earth, congenial spirits seek 
companionship, we may expect to find Payson talking 
with Bramwell on the power of prayer, with Fletcher 
on the beauty of holiness, and with Hedding on the 
triumphs of faith over suffering and death. 

May every reader of this sketch be stimulated by 
the lofty example it records to aim high in the pur- 
suit of Christian attainments and usefulness, and 
finally reach that heaven where the immortal spirit 
of Edward Payson bathes in a sea of glory, and 

" Where saints of all ages in harmony meet, 
Their Saviour and brethren transported to greet ; 
Where anthems of rapture unceasingly roll, 
And the smile of the Lord is the feast of the soul." 



PAET II. 

SELECTIONS FROM THE WORKS OE EDWARD 
PAYSON, D.D. 



Blending the Friend with the Parent 

"Were others blessed with friends like mine, how 
much greater would be the sum of virtue and happi- 
ness on earth than we have reason to fear it is at 
present. Why cannot other parents learn your art 
of mixing the friend with the parent ? of joining 
friendship to filial affection, and of conciliating love 
without losing respect ? — an art of more importance 
to society and more difficult to learn — at least, if we 
may judge by the rareness with which it is found — 
than any other ; and an art which you, my dear 
parents, certainly have in perfection." 

A Wise Preference. 

" I should take infinitely more satisfaction in the 
conversation of a plain, unlettered Christian, than in 
the unmeaning tattle of the drawing-room or the 
flippant vivacity of professed wits. What gives me 
most uneasiness, and what I fear will always be a 
thorn in my path, is too great a thirst for applause e 
When I sit down to write I perpetually catch myself 
considering, not what will be most useful, but what 
will be most likely to gain praise from an audience. 



50 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

If I should be unpopular, it would, I fear, give me 
more uneasiness than it ought ; and if — though I 
think there is little reason to fear it — I should in any 
degree be acceptable, what a terrible blaze it would 
make in my bosom ! " 

The Reason of the Confusion Stated. 

"January 15, 1806. If you, my dear mother, can 
pick out the meaning in the last page, I shall be glad ; 
for in truth it is but poorly expressed. You must 
have observed that my letters are very obscure ; that 
the transitions from one subject to another are rapid 
and capricious. The reason of this confusion is, 
when I sit down to write, forty ideas jump at once, 
all equally eager to get out, and jostle and incom- 
mode each other at such a rate, that not the most 
proper, but the strongest, escapes first. My mind 
would fain pour itself all out, at once, on the paper ; 
but, the pen being rather too small a passage. . . . 
So much by way of apology." 

t 
Extracts from Payson s First Oration, July 4, 1806. 

" The vessel of our republic, driven by the gales of 
faction, and hurried still faster by the secret current 
of luxury and vice, is following the same course, and 
fast approaching the same rocks, which have proved 
fatal to so many before us. Already may we hear 
the roaring of the surge ; already do we begin to circle 
round the vortex which is soon to ingulf us. Yet we 
see no danger. In vain does experience offer us the 
wisdom of past ages for our direction : in vain does 
the genius of history spread her chart, and point out 
the ruin toward which we are advancing : in vain do 



Selections from his Works. 51 

the ghosts of departed governments, lingering round 
the rocks on which they perished, warn us of our ap- 
proaching fate, and eagerly strive to terrify us from 
our course. It seems to be an immutable law of our 
nature that nations, as well as individuals, shall learn 
wisdom by no experience but their own. That blind, 
that accursed, infatuation which ever appears to 
govern mankind when their most important interests 
are concerned, leads us, in defiance of reason, experi- 
ence, and common sense, to flatter ourselves that the 
same causes which have proved fatal to all other 
governments will lose their pernicious tendency when 
exerted on our own." 

"That virtue, both in those who command and 
those who obey, is absolutely essential to the existence 
of republics, is a maxim, and a most important one, 
in political science. Whether we retain a sufficient 
share of this virtue to promise ourselves a long dura- 
tion, you, my friends, must decide. But should the 
period ever arrive when luxury and intemperance 
shall corrupt our towns, while ignorance and vice 
pervade the country ; when the press shall become 
the common sewer of falsehood and slander; when 
talents and integrity shall be no recommendation, 
and open dereliction of all principle no obstacle to 
preferment ; when we shall intrust our liberties to 
men with whom we should not dare to trust our 
property ; when the chief seats of honor and respon- 
sibility in our government shall be filled by characters 
of whom the most malicious ingenuity can invent 
nothing worse than the truth ; when we shall see the 
members of our national councils, in defiance of the 
laws of God and their country, throwing away their 



52 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

lives in defense of reputations which, if they ever 
existed, had long been lost ; when the slanderers of 
Washington and the blasphemers of our God shall be 
thought useful laborers in our political vineyard ; 
when, in fine, we shall see our legislators sacrificing 
their senses, their reason, their oaths, and their con- 
sciences at the altar of party ; then we may say that 
virtue has departed, and that the end of our liberty 
draweth nigh." 

Peculiar Temptations and Special Relief, 

" I have lately been severely tried with doubts and 
difficulties respecting many parts of Scripture. Read- 
ing the other day, I met with this passage, ' For his 
great name's sake/ It was immediately suggested 
to my mind, that, as the Deity bestowed all his favors 
on us ' for his great name's sake,' we were under no 
obligations to feel grateful for them. And though 
my heart assented to the propriety of gratitude, my 
head would not. In hearing my scholars recite the 
Greek Testament, I am disturbed by numberless 
seeming inconsistencies and doubts, which, though 
they do not shake my belief, render me for a tin.e 
extremely miserable. I find no relief in these trials 
from the treatises which have been written in proof 
of the truth of revelation. It is from a different 
source that assistance is received." 

Payson s Appreciation of Pious Parents. 

"April 20, 1805. My dearest Mother: I have 
just been perusing something excessively interesting 
to my feelings. It is a short extract from your jour- 
nal in my sister's letter. Surely it is my own fault 



Selections from his Works. 53 

that I do not resemble Samuel in more instances 
than one. What a disgrace to me, that, with such 
rare and inestimable advantages, I have made no 
greater progress ! However, thanks to the fervent, 
effectual prayers of my righteous parents, and the 
tender mercies of my God upon me, I have reason to 
hope that the pious wishes breathed over my infant 
head are, in some measure, fulfilled ; nor would I ex- 
change the benefits which I have derived from my 
parents for the inheritance of any monarch* in the 
universe." 

The Scheme of Redemption Glorious, 

" I did not intend to say another word about my 
feelings ; but I must, or else cease writing. I am so 
happy that I cannot possibly think nor write of any 
thing else. Such a glorious, beautiful, consistent 
scheme for the redemption of such miserable wretches ! 
such infinite love and goodness, joined with such wis- 
dom ! I would, if possible, raise my voice so that 
the whole universe, to its remotest bounds, might 
hear me, if any language could be found worthy of 
such a subject. How transporting, and yet how 
humiliating, are the displays of divine goodness which, 
at some favored moments, we feel ! what happiness 
in humbling ourselves in the dust, and confessing our 
sins and un worthiness ! " 

* The admirers of Cowper — between whom and the subject of this 
Memoir there are several strong points of resemblance — will be re- 
minded at once of those beautiful lines — 

11 My boast is not that I deduce my birth 
From loins enthroned, and rulers of the earth ; 
But higher far my proud pretensions rise — 
The son of parents passed into the skies." 



54 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

A Motive for Choosing Religious Companions. 

"Dec. 2, 1805. There is no worldly blessing that 
is not heightened by religion, but none more so than 
friendship, whether it be between relatives by con- 
sanguinity, or those who are joined in marriage, or 
other friends. The idea of parting must embitter 
the pleasure of the man of the world ; but the Chris- 
tian, if he has chosen his friends aright, may hope to 
enjoy their society with more pleasure hereafter than 
he can now. For this reason I never should choose 
a partner for life whom I could not hope to meet 
beyond the tomb." 

Our Old Frie7td Bunyan. 

" I have of late taken some pleasure in recollecting 
the pilgrimages of our old friend Bunyan, and see a 
striking propriety in many parts of them which I did 
not formerly rightly understand. For some time past 
I have been with Tender Conscience in the caves of 
Good Resolution and Contemplation, and, like him, fell 
into the clutches of Spiritual Pride. It is astonishing, 
and what nothing but sad experience could make us 
believe, that Satan and a corrupt heart should have 
the art of extracting the most dangerous poison from 
those things which apparently would, and certainly 
ought, to have the most beneficial effects. If I do not, 
after all, fall into the hands of Old Carnal Security, I 
shall have reason to be thankful. There is such a 
fascination in the magic circle of worldly pleasures 
and pursuits as can hardly be conceived without ex- 
perience ; and I am astonished and vexed to find its 
influence continually thwarting and hindering me. 



Selections from his Works. 55 

And so many plausible excuses are perpetually sug- 
gesting themselves that compliance can hardly be 

avoided. ,, 

Spiritual Pride. 

" It seems to me one of the worst of the hellish 
offspring of fallen nature, that it should have such 
a tendency to pride, and above all, Spiritual Pride. 
How many artifices does it contrive to hide itself! 
If, at any time, I am favored with clearer discoveries 
of my natural and acquired depravity and hatefulness 
in the sight of God, and am enabled to mourn over 
it, in comes Spiritual Pride, with ' Ay, this is some- 
thing like ! this is holy mourning for sin ; this is true 
humility/ If I happen to detect and spurn at these 
thoughts, immediately he changes his battery, and 
begins : ' Another person would have indulged those 
feelings, and imagined he was really humble, but you 
know better ; you can detect and banish pride at 
once, as you ought to do.' Thus this hateful enemy 
continually harasses me. What proof that the heart 
is the native soil of pride, when it thus contrives to 
gather strength from those very exercises which one 
would think must destroy it utterly ! " 

The Town in an Uproar. 

" I preached last Sabbath on man's depravity, and 
attempted to show that by nature man, is, in stupidity 
and insensibility, a block ; in sensuality and sottish- 
ness, a beast ; and in pride, malice, cruelty, and 
treachery, a devil. This set the whole town in an 
uproar, and never was such a racket made about any 
poor sermon ; it is perfectly inconceivable to any who 
have not seen it. But I cannot help hoping that 



56 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

amid all this smoke there may be some latent sparks 
which will burst out into a blaze." 

Both Sides of the Question. 

" Mr. R. has a unanimous call at Gorham ; but he 
feels afraid to settle, because he is not qualified. I 
tell him to settle by all means ; for, if he waits a little 
longer, he never will feel qualified to settle at all. If 
I had waited till this time, I surely should never have 
been a minister. I should give up now, but, when- 
ever I think of it, something seems to say, ' What are 
you going to give up for ? Suppose you are a poor, 
miserable, blind, weak, stupid worm of the dust, with 
mountains of opposition before you — is that any reason 
for discouragement ? Have you yet to learn, that 
God has chosen the weak things of the world to con- 
found the mighty, and that if you had the talents of 
an angel you could do nothing without his assistance? 
Has he not already helped you beyond all you dared 
ask or think ; and has not he promised to help you 
in future ? What, then, would you, poor, weak, stupid, 
cowardly fool, have more ? What do you keep mur- 
muring about all the time ? Why don't you glory in 
your infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest 
upon you?' To all this I can answer nothing, and 
so I keep dragging on, because I dare not leave off 
without a discharge." 

The Ministers of Christ in a Trying Situation. 

"My friends, how trying is the situation of the 
ministers of Christ, if they have any love for their 
people or regard for their souls. They are like a man 
placed on the brink of a precipice to warn travelers 



Selections from his Works. 57 

that, if they proceed, they will inevitably be dashed 
in pieces. The travelers arrive, listen to the warning, 
and then, with a few exceptions, hold on their course, 
and perish before the eyes of him who labored in 
vain to save them." 

Primeval Harmony, 

" Of this universal concert man was appointed the 
terrestrial leader, and was furnished with natural and 
moral powers admirably fitted for this blessed and 
glorious employment. His body, exempt from dis- 
solution, disease, and decay, was like a perfect and 
well-strung instrument, which never gave forth a false 
or uncertain sound, but always answered, with exact 
precision, the wishes of his nobler part, the soul. 
His heart did not then belie his tongue, when he 
sung the praises of his Creator ; but all the emotions 
felt by the one were expressed by the other, from 
the high notes of ecstatic admiration, thankfulness, 
and joy, down to the deep tones of the most pro- 
found veneration and humility. In a word, his heart 
was the throne of celestial love and harmony, and his 
tongue at once the organ of their will, and the scepter 
of their power. 

" We are told, in ancient story, of a statue formed 
with such wonderful art that whenever it was visited 
by the rays of the rising sun, it gave forth, in honor 
of that luminary, the most melodious and ravishing 
sounds. In like manner, man was originally so con- 
stituted by skill divine, that, whenever he contem- 
plated the rays of wisdom, power, and goodness, 
emanating from the great Sun of the moral system, 
the ardent emotions of his soul spontaneously burst 



58 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

forth in the most pure and exalted strains of adoration 
and praise. Such was the world, such was man, at 
the creation. Even in the eye of the Creator all was 
good ; for, wherever he turned, he saw only his own 
image and heard nothing but his own praises. Love 
beamed from every countenance : harmony reigned 
in every breast, and flowed mellifluous from every 
tongue ; and the grand chorus of praise, begun by 
raptured seraphs round the throne and heard from 
heaven to earth, was re-echoed back from earth to 
heaven ; and this blissful sound, loud as the arch- 
angel's trump and sweet as the melody .of his golden 
harp, rapidly spread, and was received from world to 
world, and floated, in gently undulating waves, even 
to the farthest bounds of creation." 

The Discord and Jargon of Sin. 

" To this primeval harmony man exhibits the lam- 
entable contrast which followed, when sin ' untuned 
the tongues of angels, and changed their blissful 
songs of praise into the groans of wretchedness, the 
execrations of malignity, the blasphemies of impiety, 
and the ravings of despair/ Storms and tempests, 
earthquakes and convulsions, fire from above, and 
deluges from beneath, which destroyed the order of 
the natural world, proved that its baleful influence 
had reached our earth, and afforded a faint emblem 
of the jars and disorders which sin had introduced 
into the moral system. Man's corporeal part, that 
lyre of a thousand strings tuned by the finger of God 
himself, destined to last as long as the soul, and to 
be her instrument in offering up eternal praise, was, 
at one blow, shattered, unstrung, and almost irrep- 



Selections from his Works. 59 

arably ruined. His soul, all whose powers and 
faculties, like the chords of an ^Eolian harp, once 
harmoniously vibrated to every breath of the divine 
Spirit, and ever returned a sympathizing sound to 
the tones of kindness and love from a fellow-being, 
now became silent and insensible to melody, or pro- 
duced only the jarring and discordant notes of envy, 
malice, hatred, and revenge. The mouth, filled with 
cursing and bitterness, was set against the heavens ; 
the tongue was inflamed with the fire of hell. Every 
voice, instead of uniting in the song of ' Glory to God 
in the highest/ was now at variance with the voices 
around it, and in barbarous and dissonant strains 
sung praise to itself, or was employed in muttering 
sullen murmurs against the Most High — in venting 
slanders against fellow-creatures — in celebrating and 
deifying some worthless idol, or in singing the tri- 
umphs of intemperance, dissipation, and excess. The 
noise of violence and cruelty was heard mingling with 
the boasting of the oppressor, the cry of the oppressed, 
and the complaints of the wretched ; while the shouts 
of embattled hosts, the crash of arms, the brazen 
clangor of trumpets, the shrieks of the wounded, the 
groans of the dying, and all the horrid din of war, 
together with the wailings of those whom it had 
rendered widows and orphans, overwhelmed and 
drowned every sound of benevolence, praise, and 
love. Such is the jargon which sin has introduced — 
such is the discord which, from every quarter of our 
globe, has long ascended up into the ears of the 
Lord of hosts." 



60 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

Confidence in God under Trial. 

" Confidence in the wisdom and goodness of divine 
providence usually reconciles the Christian to trials, 
and sustains him under the occurrence of events, 
which, at the time, are wholly inexplicable. He rests 
on the kind assurance of his Redeemer, 'What thou 
knowest not now, thou shalt know hereafter/ And, 
though this promise refers him to a period beyond 
the confines of mortality, when the light of heaven 
shall beam on the intricacies of Providence, and put 
to flight the darkness which envelopes them ; yet, 
even in the present world, he is often surprised with 
discoveries of the design and tendency of such dis- 
pensations, which render him grateful for them, and 
cause him to bless God, who made them a part of 
his paternal discipline. In retracing his path through 
life he sees his most dreaded calamities connected 
with his choicest mercies, his lowest depression with 
his highest elevation — and so connected, that, with- 
out the former, the latter would not have been. That 
which threatened the destruction of his ability to do 
good he finds to be his highest qualification for use- 
fulness." 

A Minister a Burden-Bearer. 

" I am borne down with heavy burdens ; pressed 
out of strength above measure, so as, at times, to de- 
spair even of life. All this is necessary, absolutely 
necessary, and I desire to consider it as a mercy ; but 
it is hard, very hard to bear. If any one asks to be 
made a successful minister, he knows not what he 
asks ; and it becomes him to consider, whether he 
can drink deeply of Christ's bitter cup, and be bap- 



Selections from his Works. 6i 

tized with his baptism. If we could learn, indeed, to 
give all the glory to God, and keep only the sin and 
imperfections to ourselves, we might be spared these 
trials. And one would think this easy enough. One 
would think, that Jonah could hardly be proud of his 
success among the Ninevites ; and we have, if pos- 
sible, less reason to be proud than he. But pride 
will live and thrive without reason, and in despite of 
every reason to the contrary." 

"Jesus, Jesus is All!" 

" The world — O what a bubble, what a trifle it is ! 
Friends are nothing, fame is nothing, health is noth- 
ing, life is nothing ; Jesus, Jesus is all ! O what 
will it be to spend an eternity in seeing and praising 
Jesus ! to see him as he is, to be satisfied with his 
likeness ! O, I long, I pant, I faint with desire to be 
singing, ' Worthy is the Lamb ! ' — to be extolling the 
riches of sovereign grace — to be casting the crown 
at the feet of Christ ! And why may we not do all 
this on earth ? " 

Ardent Desires to Glorify Christ. 

" I have sometimes heard of spells and charms to 
excite love, and have wished for them, when a boy, 
that I might cause others to love me. But how much 
more do I now wish for some charm which should lead 
men to love the Saviour ! What would I not give 
for the power to make sinners love him, for the faculty 
of describing his beauties and glories in such a man- 
ner as to excite warmer affections toward him in the 
hearts of Christians ! Could I paint a true likeness 
of him, methinks I should rejoice to hold it up to the 



62 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

view and admiration of all creation, and be hid behind 
it forever. It would be heaven enough to hear him 
praised and adored, though no one should know or 
care about insignificant me." 

A Brand Plucked Out of the Fire. 

"'Is not this a brand plucked out of the fire?' 
What a just and striking description of every re- 
deemed sinner! and what a glorious idea does it 
afford us of the work of redemption ! To snatch a 
smoking brand from eternal burnings, and plant it 
among the stars in the firmament of heaven, there to 
shine like the sun forever — O, what a glorious work 
is this ! a work worthy of God ! a work which none 
but God could perform ! Such a brand am I — a 
brand yet smoking with the half-extinguished fires of 
sin ; a brand, scorched and blackened by the flames 
of hell. What then do I owe to Him who entered the 
furnace of divine wrath that he might bring me out ! 
who spread himself over me as a shield from that fiery 
storm, which would have set me forth an example, 
like Sodom, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire." 

"If I could Borrow the Archangel's Trump" 

" I have no heart to speak or write about any thing 
but Jesus ; and yet I have little patience to write 
about him in our miserably defective language. O 
for a language suitable to speak his praises, and de- 
scribe his glory and beauty ! But they cannot be 
described — they cannot be conceived ; for ' no man 
knoweth the Son, but the Father/ What a wonder- 
ful idea does that text give us of the Son ! Saints in 
heaven do not know him perfectly ; even the angels 



Selections from his Works. 63 

do not None but the Father is able to comprehend 
all his excellence. Yet various, great, unsearchable, 
infinite, as are his excellences, they are all ours ; our 
Saviour, our Head, 'our flesh and our bone.' O, 
wonder ! — how passing wonder — is this ! Methinks 
if I could borrow, for a moment, the archangel's 
trump, and make heaven, earth, and hell resound 
with ' Worthy is the Lamb that was slain/ I could 
contentedly drop into nothing ! But no, I should 
wish to live, and make them resound with his name 
through eternity. What a transporting thought — to 
spend an eternity in exalting God and the Lamb ; in 
beholding their glory, and hearing them extolled by 
all creatures! — this is heaven indeed. To be swal- 
lowed up and lost in God ; to have our spirits em- 
braced, wrapped up in his all-infolding Spirit ; to 
forget ourselves, and think only of him ; to lose, in a 
manner, our own separate existence, and exist only 
in him ; to have his glory all in all to us ; this is, in- 
deed, a far more exceeding and eternal weight of 
glory." 

A Half- Sleeping, Half- Waking Dream. 

" I now find why my gracious Master has suffered 
me to be so grievously tormented in times past. 
How miserably qualified should I otherwise have 
been to speak a word in season to them that are 
weary ! Still I, I, I ! nothing but I's — seven in half 
a page. Well, I don't care — I am writing to my 
mother, and I know she loves to hear about I ; so I 
will proceed, and tell her about a half-sleeping, half- 
waking dream I had the other morning. If it does 
her as much good as it did me, it wont be paper lost. 



64 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

" After a curious kind of frame in sleep, I waked 
myself up with exclaiming, ' Lord, why is it that 
thou art never weary of heaping favors on ungrateful, 
perverse, stubborn wretches, who render thee only 
evil for good ? ' In a moment he seemed to reply as 
powerfully as if he had spoken with an audible voice, 
' Because I am never weary of gratifying my dear Son, 
and showing the greatness of my love to him. Till I 
am weary of him, and cease to love him, I shall never 
be weary of heaping favors on his friends, however 
unworthy/ These words, it is true, contain nothing 
more than an obvious truth ; but they conveyed more 
to my mind than all the books I ever read." 

Getting a Wife without Loss of Time. 

" Exeter, Wednesday Eve. My dearest Mother : 
As I know the deep interest you take in every thing 
which concerns your son, I will go no farther before 
I inform you of the result of the business on which 
we conversed while I was at home. I cannot, indeed, 
go into particulars ; but it may be some gratification 
to you to know that the business is concluded on, 
and nothing remains but to fix the wedding day. 
On this point alone we differed. ... 

"And now, my dearest mother, you must permit 
me to exult over you a little. When I used to talk 
of getting a wife without losing any time about it, 
you laughed at the idea, and thought it preposterous, 
impracticable, and absurd. But you see, that with- 
out going a mile purposely out of my way, or losing a 
single hour, I have found and courted, or rather Prov- 
idence has found for me, a person who bids fairer to 
render me happy than any other woman I have seen." 



Selections from his Works. 65 

Public Prayer a Kind of Devout Poetry. 

"That public prayer may produce its proper and 
designed effects upon their hearts, it should be, if I 
may so express it, a kind of devout poetry. As in 
poetry, so in prayer, the whole subject-matter should 
be furnished by the heart ; and the understanding 
should be allowed only to shape and arrange the 
effusions of the heart in the manner best adapted to 
answer the end designed. From the fullness of a 
heart overflowing with holy affections, as from a copi- 
ous fountain, we should pour forth a torrent of pious, 
humble, and ardently affectionate feelings ; while our 
understandings only shape the channel, and teach the 
gushing streams of devotion where to flow and when 
to stop. In such a prayer every pious heart among 
our hearers will join. They will hear a voice and 
utterance given to their feelings. They will hear their 
desires and emotions expressed more fully and per- 
spicuously than they could express them themselves. 
Their hearts will spring forward to meet and unite with 
the heart of the speaker. The well of water which our 
Saviour assures us is in all who drink of his Spirit, will 
rise, and burst its way through the rubbish of worldly 
cares and affections which too often choke it ; and the 
stream of devotion from many hearts will unite, and 
flow on, in one broad tide, to the throne of Jehovah ; 
while, with one mind and one mouth, minister and peo- 
ple glorify God. Such was the prayer of Ezra, and such 
its effects : ' And Ezra blessed the Lord, the great God. 
And all the people answered, Amen, amen, with lifting 
up of their hands ; and they bowed their heads and wor- 
shiped the Lord with their faces toward the ground/ " 



66 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

A Fault in Public Prayer. 

"A fault in public prayer consists in uttering the 
different parts in the same tone. When our prayers 
are the language of the understanding only, this 
will always be done ; but not so when they flow from 
the heart. No person need be informed that in our 
intercourse with each other a different modification 
of the voice is employed to express every different 
emotion of the heart. No one would expect to hear 
a condemned malefactor plead for his life and return 
thanks for a pardon in the same tone. And why is 
it not equally unnatural for sinful beings, condemned 
to eternal death, to plead for pardon and return thanks 
for its bestowal in the same tone ? Yet how often is 
this done ! How often do we hear prayers flow on, 
from the commencement to the close, in the same 
uniform tone, with scarcely a perceptible inflection 
of the voice ! Yet no two things can differ more 
widely than the feelings which are expressed in dif- 
ferent parts of the same prayer. Surely, then, a cor- 
responding difference ought to be perceived in the 
modifications of the voice." 

How a True Embassador of Christ Delivers his 

Message. 

" In delivering his message as an embassador of 
Christ, he would show that he felt deeply penetrated 
with a conviction of its truth and infinite importance. 
He would speak like one whose whole soul was filled 
with his subject. He would speak of Christ and his 
salvation as a grateful, admiring people would speak 
of a great and generous deliverer, who had devoted 



Selections from his Works. 67 

his life for the welfare of his country. He would 
describe religion as a traveler describes a country 
through which he has leisurely passed, or as an aged 
man describes the scenes of his former life. He 
would portray the Christian warfare as a veteran por- 
trays a battle in which he has just been contending 
for liberty and life. He would speak of eternity as 
one whose eye had been wearied in attempting to 
penetrate its unfathomable recesses, and describe its 
awful realities like a man who stood on the verge of 
time, and had lifted the vail which conceals them 
from the view of mortals. ' Thoughts that glow and 
words that burn' would compose his public addresses ; 
and while a sense of the dignity of his official char- 
acter, and the infinite importance of his subject, 
would lead him to speak as one having authority, 
with indescribable solemnity, weight, and energy, 
a full recollection that he was by nature a child of 
wrath, and that he was addressing fellow-men, fellow- 
sinners, mingled with compassion for their wretched 
state and an ardent desire for their salvation, would 
spread an air of tenderness over his discourses, and 
invest him with that affectionate, melting, persuasive 
correctness of manner, which is best calculated to 
affect and penetrate the heart. To say all in a word, 
he would speak like an embassador of Him who spake 
as never man spake, and who could say, We speak 
what we do know, and testify what we have seen." 

Three Things Make a Divine, 

" If we would do much for God we must ask much 
of God ; we must be men of prayer ; we must, almost 
literally, pray without ceasing. You have doubtless 



68 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

met with Luther's remark, 'Three things make a 
divine — prayer, meditation, and temptation/ My dear 
brother, I cannot insist on this too much. Prayer is 
the first thing, the second thing, and the third thing 
necessary for a minister, especially in seasons of re- 
vival. The longer you live in the ministry, the more 
deeply, I am persuaded, you will be convinced of this. 
Pray then, my dear brother, pray, pray, pray. Read 
the account of Solomon's choice, I Kings iii, 5 — 1 5- 
If, like him, you choose wisdom, and pray for it, it 
will be yours/' 

Extempore Preaching. 

" Since the failure of my health, I preach but three 
sermons in a week — two on the Sabbath, and one on 
Thursday evening On that evening and Sabbath 
morning I preach without notes, but generally from 
a skeleton of my sermon. I should like to write 
more, but my health will not permit ; and I find that 
when any good is done, it is my extempore sermons 
which do it. I am afraid of producing a faith which 
stands not in the power of God but in the wisdom of 
men, and therefore make as little use as possible of 
human arguments, but confine myself to a plain, 
simple exhibition of divine truth. The sword of the 
Spirit will not wound if it has a scabbard on it. I 
also aim to preach the truths of the Gospel in a 
practical and experimental, rather than in a dry 
and speculative manner. In preaching to professing 
Christians, I endeavor to rouse and humble rather 
than to comfort them ; for if they can be kept humble, 
comfort will follow of course. Besides, I do not sup- 
pose that Christians need as much consolation now 



Selections from his Works. 69 

as they did in the primitive ages, when exposed to 
persecution." 

Satan 's Cunning. 

" I wish, with all my heart, that Satan would fight 
against the peace of some of our Church more than 
he does ; but he is too cunning to do that. He sees 
that they are slumbering, and he will take care not 
to wake them. You can scarcely form an idea how 
soporific the air of a seaport is, nor of the irresistible 
force with which the world assails Christians in such 
a place as this. The moment they step out-of-doors 
it rushes in at their eyes and ears in ten thousand 
shapes, so that unless their hearts are preoccupied 
with better things, they are filled with it in a moment. 
By turns I expostulate, and plead, and warn, and 
threaten, and weep, and pray, and sometimes almost 
scold, but all in vain. The world drags away its 
victims, and laughs my feeble efforts to scorn." 

Meditations on the Priesthood of Christ. 

" I have lately had some delightful meditations on 
the priesthood of Christ. I was led to them by think- 
ing how a penitent Israelite must have regarded his 
high priest. We may consider such a man as say- 
ing, " I am a miserable, polluted sinner. I cannot 
enter the holy place where God dwells, but am kept 
at a distance. I cannot burn incense acceptably, 
cannot be permitted even to offer my own sacrifice. 
But I have a high priest, appointed and consecrated 
by God, who is permitted to approach him on my 
behalf. He carries my name, or the name of my 
tribe, on his breastplate. He offers sacrifice for me ; 



jo Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

he burns incense for me ; he enters the most holy 
place, and sprinkles atoning blood for me. In him I 
am accepted, and in him will I glory. Take away 
my high priest, and you take away my all ; but, while 
I have him, while he is accepted in my behalf, I will 
exult and rejoice/ And with how much more reason 
may the Christian triumph and glory in his great 
High Priest, and rejoice that he is 'accepted in the 
Beloved.' I do not mention these thoughts as any 
thing new, but as thoughts which have been pecul- 
iarly sweet and precious to me of late. Yet, alas ! I 
am continually seeking to be my own high priest, to 
find something in myself for the sake of which I may 
be accepted, at least in part/' 

Professors in Concentric Circles around Christ, 

" Suppose professors of religion to be ranged in 
different concentric circles around Christ, as their 
common center. Some value the presence of their 
Saviour so highly that they cannot bear to be at any 
remove from him. Even their work they will bring 
up and do it in the light of his countenance ; and, 
while engaged in it, will be seen constantly raising 
their eyes to him, as if fearful of losing one beam of 
his light. Others, who, to be sure, would not be con- 
tent to live out of his presence, are yet less wholly 
absorbed by it than these, and may be seen a little 
further off, engaged here and there in their various 
callings, their eyes generally upon their work, but 
often looking up for the light which they love. A 
third class, beyond these, but yet within the life- 
giving rays, includes a doubtful multitude, many of 
whom are so much engaged in their worldly schemes 



Selections from his Works. 71 

that they may be seen standing sideways to Christ, 
looking mostly the other way, and only now and then 
turning their faces toward the light. And yet further 
out, among the last scattered rays, so distant that it 
is often doubtful whether they come at all within their 
influence, is a mixed assemblage of busy ones, some 
with their backs wholly turned upon the sun, and 
most of them so careful and troubled about their many 
things, as to spare but little time for their Saviour. 

"The reason why the men of the world think so 
little of Christ, is, that they do not look at him. 
Their backs being turned to the sun, they can see 
only their own shadows, and are, therefore, wholly 
taken up with themselves ; while the true disciple, 
looking only upward, sees nothing but his Saviour, 
and learns to forget himself." 

Growth of Grace in the Heart Illustrated. 

" The growth of grace in the heart may be com- 
pared to the process of polishing metals. First, you 
have a dark, opaque substance, neither possessing 
nor reflecting light. Presently, as the polisher plies 
his work, you will see here and there a spark darting 
out ; then a strong light ; till, by and by, it sends 
back a perfect image of the sun which shines upon it. 
So the work of grace, if begun in our hearts, must be 
gradually and continually going on ; and it will not 
be completed till the image of God can be seen per- 
fectly reflected in us." 

The Thirsty Sinner by the Riverside. 

" Suppose a number of persons standing by a river's 
side. They are invited to drink of its waters, but 



72 Mementoes of -Edward Payson. 

they are not thirsty, and, therefore, do not desire 
them. At length their thirst is excited, and they 
look round for a vessel with which to take up some 
water. But their vessels are all filled with some 
worthless thing, which they are as yet unwilling to 
part with. But as their thirst increases they become 
willing to- relinquish what they had thought of so 
much value, and, finally, emptying their vessels of 
this rubbish, and receiving the water, they quench 
their thirst. Thus it is with sinners: Jesus Christ 
invites them to come to him, the Fountain of living 
waters. But they decline his invitations — their hearts 
being filled with the treasures of earth. They do 
not thirst for Christ till God takes away the love of 
this world and its vanities, and the Holy Spirit fills 
them with desire to come to him. Then they hun- 
ger and thirst after righteousness, and are prepared 
to receive Christ. ,, 

Love for the Absent Oiie. 

"Suppose two persons equally desirous to gain 
your affections : one far distant, and not expecting to 
see you for a long time ; the other always present 
with you, and at liberty to use all means to win your 
love, able to flatter and gratify you in a thousand 
ways. Still you prefer the absent one ; and, that 
you may keep him in remembrance, you often retire 
by yourself to think of his love to you, and view 
again and again the mementoes of his affection, to 
read his letters, and pour out your heart in return. 
Such is now your case ; the world is always before 
you, to flatter, promise, and please. But if you really 
prefer to love God you will fix your thoughts on him, 



Selections from his Works. 73 

often retire for meditation and prayer, and recount 
the pleasant gifts of his providence, and especially 
his infinite mercy to your soul ; you will read fre- 
quently his holy Word, which is the letter he has sent 
you, as really as if it were directed to you by name." 

Pardon Impossible without Repentance, 

" It is morally impossible for God to pardon sinners 
without repentance. The moment he should do it, 
he would cease to be a perfectly holy being ; of 
course, all the songs of heaven would stop, and all 
the happiness of the universe be dried up. In his 
conduct he is governed by a regard to the good of 
the whole. If a sovereign, out of false pity to crimi- 
nals, should pardon them indiscriminately, he would 
thus destroy the happiness of all his faithful subjects, 
and introduce misery and confusion into his kingdom. 
But infinitely worse consequences would ensue if 
God should neglect to punish those who continue 
willfully to transgress his law. His vast dominions 
would become one universal scene of anarchy and 
confusion ; happiness would be banished forever ; and 
misery, in its most aggravated forms, would prevail 
throughout the universe. Yet all this the sinner 
would think ought to be endured, rather than that 
he should be obliged to repent of his sins." 

The Criminality of Sin. 

" To assist you in estimating the criminality of sin, 
suppose that you had committed the first sin — that 
before you were born such a thing had never been 
heard or thought of, but that all beings had united in 
loving and serving God, till all at once you started 



74 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

up and began to disobey his commands. What a 
commotion would be excited ! Instantly the news 
would spread through heaven and earth, with incon- 
ceivable rapidity, and all ranks and orders of beings 
would join in exclaiming, ' It cannot be ! Where is 
the wretch who would dare to disobey Jehovah?' 
Suppose, then, that you were obliged to come for- 
ward and stand in the view of the assembled universe 
of myriads of sinless beings, who all regarded you 
with feelings of astonishment, horror, and detestation, 
too strong for utterance. How inexpressibly dread- 
ful would sin appear in this point of view ! And 
yet it is, in reality, just as dreadful and as criminal 
tc sin now, as if no sin had ever been committed by 
another." 

The Absurdity of Sinner f Excuses, 

"When sinners have been awakened to see their 
guilt and danger, and are invited to come to Christ 
and be saved, they frequently make such excuses as 
these : ' I cannot believe that the invitations of the 
Gospel were intended for such sinners as I am ; I am 
afraid I do not feel right, and that Christ will not re- 
ceive me/ Suppose a table set in the street, and 
loaded with all kinds of food ; and that a herald is 
sent to make proclamation that all who wish may 
come and partake freely. A poor man comes, and 
stands looking very wishfully at the table ; and, when 
he is asked why he does not eat, replies, ' O, I am 
afraid the invitation is not meant for me ; I am not 
fit/ Again he is assured that the invitation is in- 
tended for all those who are hungry, and that no other 
qualification is necessary. Still he objects, ' But I 



Selections from his Works. 75 

am afraid I am not hungry enough/ In the same 
way do sinners deprive themselves, by their own 
folly, of those blessings which are freely offered them 
by their Creator." 

A Mediator Rejected. 

"Suppose the rebellious subjects of a very wise 
and good king condemned to death. The king has 
a son, who, from compassion to these poor wretches, 
offers to make satisfaction to his father for their 
crimes if he will pardon them. The king consents 
on one condition. He places his son at the door of 
his palace and makes proclamation that every one 
who comes to him for pardon, and is led in by his 
son, shall be forgiven for his sake. One of the cul- 
prits comes, and, rejecting the proffered hand of the 
prince, rushes to the throne himself. Can this man 
expect mercy ? Thus God has provided a Mediator, 
and commanded all to approach in his name; and 
none should expect to be received who do not come 
to God in this appointed way." 

A Newspaper y an Almanac, and the Bible. 

"A wayfaring man stops at a tavern, and to be- 
guile the time of his stay there, looks round for some 
book. He sees, perhaps, a newspaper, an almanac, 
and the Bible ; but chooses to pore over either of the 
former, in preference to the Word of God, thinking 
it hardly possible to be amused or interested in that. 
Even a Christian will sometimes do thus. This is 
as if a man should be introduced into an apartment, 
in one division of which were Jesus Christ and the 
apostles, and in the other the most dissolute and 



76 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

frivolous company ; and on being invited by the 
Saviour to sit with them and enjoy their company, 
should refuse, and seat himself with the others. 
Would not this be a most gross insult to the Saviour ? 
and do you not equally undervalue and refuse his 
company when you thus neglect and despise his holy 
Word — through which he converses with you, and 
invites you near to himself — and choose some foolish 
production instead of it ?" 

God's Image Reflected by his Saints, 

" In explanation of the command to glorify God : 
It may seem strange and presumptuous to speak of 
such poor, sinful, worthless beings as we are as 
glorifying, or as capable of glorifying, God. But the 
perfect Christian may be compared to a perfect mir- 
ror, which, though dark and opaque of itself, being 
placed before the sun reflects his whole image, and 
may be said to increase his glory, by increasing and 
scattering his light. In this view we may regard 
heaven, where God is perfectly glorified in his saints, 
as the firmament studded with ten thousand times 
ten thousand and thousands of thousands of mirrors, 
every one of them reflecting a perfect image of God, 
the Sun in the center, and filling the universe with 
the blaze of his glory." 

Good Impressions — Illustration. 

" Whenever you feel any thing within you, my dear 
young friends, urging you to attend to religion, it is 
the Spirit of God ; and if you refuse to comply, you 
will grieve him away. Suppose God should let down 
from heaven a number of very fine cords, and if any 



Selections from his Works. 77 

person should take hold of one, it would continue to 
grow larger and stronger, till at length he is drawn 
by it into heaven. Great care would be necessary, 
especially at first, not to break it ; for if once broken 
it might never be renewed. How careful should we 
expect the person to be to whom one of these cords 
was extended not to break it, to avoid all violence, 
and follow wherever it led him ! Just so anxiously 
ought you to cherish those good impressions which 
are produced on your minds by the Spirit of God ; for 
if you once grieve him he may never return." 

The High and Low Seat. 

" Suppose a man builds a temple, with one seat in 
it very high and much ornamented, and another very 
far below it. You ask him for whom those seats are 
designed, and he replies : ' Why, the most elevated 
one is for me, and the one below it is for God/ Now 
in this case you can all see the horrible absurdity 
and impiety of such conduct ; and yet each of you, 
who continues impenitent, is doing this. You have 
given yourselves the first place in your affections ; 
you have thought more of yourselves than of God, 
and have done more to please yourselves than to 
please God ; in short, you have, in every thing, pre- 
ferred yourselves before him." 

A Proper Course of Reading for Christians. 

" It may be proper, and perhaps advantageous, for 
a Christian to read, sparingly, works of taste. Some 
knowledge of the philosophy of the mind is desirable, 
and may be obtained without very great expense of 
time. Church history, and a knowledge of ancient 



78 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

eastern customs, will be very useful. Every kind of 
knowledge which expands, strengthens, and adorns 
the mind may be properly sought by the Christian, 
and ought to be sought by every Christian who has 
leisure and opportunity for reading. Our aim in 
seeking it should be to qualify ourselves to serve and 
glorify God more effectually, and to increase our 
power of being useful to our fellow-creatures. It is 
an old remark that ' knowledge is power/ To in- 
crease our knowledge, then, is to increase our power 
of doing good. Highly as I prize such writers as 
Fenelon, a Kempis, etc., I am convinced we may study 
them, not, perhaps, too much, but too exclusively. 
We may study them to the exclusion of other writers 
whose works demand our attention ; and we may be 
so intent upon watching our feelings as to forget to 
watch our words and actions. As some are content 
with a religion which is all body, so others may aim 
at a religion which is all soul ; but religion has a 
body as well as a soul. If some think it sufficient to 
cleanse the outside of the cup, others may be so 
much occupied in cleansing it within as to forget that 
it has an outside. Both deserve attention." 

The Son Comforts the Mother. 

" My dear mother, break away ; O that God would 
enable you to break away from all your cares and 
sorrows, and fly, rise, soar up to the New Jerusalem ! 
See its diamond walls, its golden streets, its pearly 
gates, its shining inhabitants, all in a blaze with re- 
flected light and glory, the light of God, the glory of 
the Lamb ! Say with David, ' Toward this city I 
will go in the strength of the Lord God ; I will make 



Selections from his Works. 79 

mention of thy righteousness, even of thine only/ 
My mother, what a righteousness is this ! The right- 
eousness of God ! A righteousness as much better 
than that of Adam, nay, than that of angels, as God 
is better than his creatures. Since, then, my dear 
mother, you have such a heaven before you, such a 
righteousness to entitle you to heaven, and such 
blessed chambers to hide in during the little moment 
which separates you from heaven, dry up your tears, 
banish your anxieties, leave sorrow and sighing to 
those who have no such blessings in store or rever- 
sion, and sing, sing, as Noah sat secure in the ark, 
and sang ' the grace that steered him through/ " 

Closet Duties — Satan s Devices, 

"On maintaining the daily performance of closet 
duties, the fate of the whole battle will turn. This 
your great adversary well knows. He knows that if 
he can beat you out of the closet he shall have you 
in his own power. You will be in the situation 
of an army cut off from supplies and reinforcements, 
and will be obliged either to capitulate or to sur- 
render at discretion. He will, therefore, leave no 
means untried to drive or draw you from the closet. 
And it will be hard work to maintain that post against 
him and your own heart. Sometimes he will prob- 
ably assail you with more violence, when you attempt 
to read or pray, than at any other time, and thus try 
to persuade you that prayer is rather injurious than 
beneficial. At other times he will withdraw, and be 
quiet, lest, if he should distress you with his tempta- 
tion, you might be driven to the throne of grace for 
help. If he can prevail upon us to be careless and 



80 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

stupid, he will rarely distress us. He will not dis- 
turb a false peace, because it is a peace of which he 
is the author. But if he cannot succeed in lulling us 
asleep, he will do all in his power to distress us. 
And when he is permitted to do this, and the Holy 
Spirit withdraws his sensible aid and consolations ; 
when, though we cry and shout, God seems to shut 
out our prayers, it is by no means easy to be con- 
stant in secret duties. Indeed, it is always most 
difficult to attend to them when they are most 
necessary." 

Weighty Words to a Christian Minister. 

" Some time since I took up a little work purport- 
ing to be the lives of sundry characters as related 
by themselves. Two of those characters agreed in 
remarking that they were never happy until they 
ceased striving to be great men. This remark struck 
me, as you know the most simple remarks will strike 
us when Heaven pleases. It occurred to me at once, 
that most of my sins and sufferings were occasioned 
by an unwillingness to be the nothing which I am, 
and by consequent struggles to be something. I 
saw that if I would but cease struggling, and consent 
to be any thing or nothing just as God pleases, I 
might be happy. You will think it strange that I 
mention this as a new discovery. In one sense it 
was not new ; I had known it for years. But I now 
saw it in a new light. My heart saw it, and con- 
sented to it ; and I am comparatively happy. My 
dear brother, if you can give up all desire to be great, 
and feel heartily willing to be nothing, you will be 
happy too. You must not even wish to be a great 



Selections from his Works. 8i 

Christian ; that is, you must not wish to make great 
attainments in religion for the sake of knowing that 
you have made them, or for the sake of having others 
think that you have made them. Very true, very 
good, you will say, though somewhat trite ; but how 
am I to bring myself to such a state ? Let me ask, 
in reply, Why are you not troubled when you see one 
man receive military, and another masonic honors ? 
Why are you not unhappy because you cannot be a 
colonel, a general, or a most worshipful grand high 
priest ? Because, you answer, I have no desire for 
these titles or distinctions. And why do you not 
desire them ? Simply because you are not running 
a race in competition with those who obtain them. 
You stand aside, and say, Let those who wish for 
these things have them. Now if you can, in a similar 
manner, give up all competition with respect to other 
objects ; if you can stand aside from the race which 
too many other ministers are running, and say, from 
your heart, ' Let those who choose to engage in such 
a race divide the prize ; let one minister run away with 
the money, and another with the esteem, and a third 
with the applause, etc. ; I have something else to do, 
a different race to run ; be God's approbation the 
only prize for which I run ; let me obtain that, and 
it is enough : ' I say, if you can, from the heart, adopt 
this language, you will find most of your difficulties 
and sufferings vanish. But it is hard to say this. It 
is almost impossible to persuade any man to renounce 
the race without cutting off his feet, or, at least, fet- 
tering him. This God has done for me ; this he has 
been doing for you. And you will, one day, if you 

do not now, bless him for all your sufferings, as I do 

6 



82 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

for mine. I have not suffered one pang too much. 
God was never more kind than when I thought him 
most unkind ; never more faithful than when I was 
ready to say, His faithfulness has failed. Let him fetter 
you, then, if he pleases. Consent that he should cut 
off your feet, if he pleases. Any thing is a blessing 
which prevents us from running the fatal race, which 
we are so prone to run ; which first convinces us that 
we are nothing, and then makes us willing to be so." 

A Proof of Faith in Prayer. 

"The command, 'Be careful for nothing/ is un- 
limited ; and so is the expression ' casting all your 
care upon him/ If we cast our burdens upon an- 
other, can they continue to press upon us ? If we 
bring them away with us from the throne of grace, it 
is evident we do not leave them there. With respect 
to myself, I have made this one test of my prayers. 
If, after committing any thing to God, I can, like 
Hannah, come away, and have my countenance no 
more sad, my heart no more pained, or anxious, I 
look upon it as one proof that I prayed in faith ; but 
if I bring away my burden, I conclude that faith was 
not in exercise/ , 

" Satan has Jumped on to the Saddle? 

" My dear Brother : I am sorry to learn that 
your health is not better, but rather worse, than when 
I was at R. Should it not have improved before you 
receive this, I beg you will attend to it without delay ; 
attend to it, as your first and chief duty ; for such, be 
assured, it is. ' A merciful man is merciful to his 
beast;' and you must be merciful to your beast, or, 



Selections from his Works. 83 

as Mr. M. would say, to your 'animal/ Remember 
that it is your Master's property ; and he will no 
more thank you for driving it to death, than an earth- 
ly master would thank a servant for riding a valuable 
horse to death, under pretense of zeal for his interest. 
The truth is, I am afraid Satan has jumped on to the 
saddle, and when he is there, in the guise of an angel 
of light, he whips and spurs at a most unmerciful 
rate, as every joint in my poor broken-winded animal 
can testify, from woeful experience. He has tempta- 
tions for the conscience, as Mr. Newton well observes ; 
and when other temptations fail, he makes great use 
of them. Many a poor creature has he ridden to 
death, by using his conscience as a spur ; and you 
must not be ignorant, nor act as if you were ignorant 
of his devices. Remember Mr. Brainerd's remark, 
that diversions, rightly managed, increased rather 
than diminished his spirituality. I now feel that I 
am never serving our Master more acceptably than 
when, for his sake, I am using means to preserve my 
health, and lengthen my life ; and you must feel in a 
similar manner, if you mean to do him much service 
in the world." 

Exalted Views of God. 

" O what a Master do I serve ! I have known noth- 
ing, felt nothing, all my days even, in comparison with 
what I now see in him. Never was preaching such 
sweet work as it is now. Never did the world seem 
such a nothing. Never did heaven appear so near, 
so sweet, so overwhelmingly glorious. . . . God's 
promises appear so strong, so solid, so real, so sub- 
stantial — more so than the rocks and everlasting 



84 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

hills ; and his perfections — what shall I say of them ? 
When I think of one, I wish to dwell upon it forever ; 
but another, and another, equally glorious, claims a 
share of admiration ; and, when I begin to praise, I 
wish never to cease, but have it the commencement 
of that song which will never end. Very often have 
I felt as if I could that moment throw off the body 
without staying to 'first go and bid them farewell 
that are at home in my house/ Let who will be 
rich, or admired, or prosperous ; it is enough for me 
that there is such a God as Jehovah, such a Saviour 
as Jesus, and that they are infinitely and unchange- 
ably glorious and happy." 

Satan s Questions Answered. 

" I rejoice the more in this work, because it enables 
me to stop the mouth of my old adversary, and to 
prove to his face that he is a liar. I could not doubt 
that I had been enabled to pray for a revival these 
many years. Nor could I persuade myself that 
Christ had not promised it to me. The essence of a 
promise consists in voluntarily exciting expectation 
of some benefit. In this sense, a revival had often 
been promised to me. And when it was not granted ; 
when, one time after another, promising appearances 
died away ; and especially when I was left to such 
exercises as rendered it impossible that I should ever 
be favored with a revival — Satan had a fine oppor- 
tunity to work upon my unbelief, and to ask, Where 
is your God? what do you get by praying to him ? 
and where is the revival which he has been so long 
encouraging you to expect, and to pray for ? Now I 
can answer these questions triumphantly, and put the 



Selections from his Works. 85 

lying tongue to silence. But the work is all God's ; 
and I stand and look on to see him work ; and this 
is favor enough, and infinitely more than I deserve." 

Inscriptions on Immortal Minds. 

" What if God should place in your hand a diamond, 
and tell you to inscribe on it a sentence which should 
be read at the last day, and shown there as an index 
of your own thoughts and feelings ? What care, what 
caution would you exercise in the selection ! Now, 
this is what God has done. He has placed before 
you immortal minds, more imperishable than the 
diamond, on which you are about to inscribe, every 
day and every hour, by your instructions, by your 
spirit, or by your example, something which will 
remain, and be exhibited for or against you at the 
judgment day." 

The Dying Christian on the Last Summit of Life. 

" Dr. Clarke, in his travels, speaking of the com- 
panies that were traveling from the East to Jerusalem, 
represents the procession as very long ; and, after 
climbing over the extended and heavy ranges of hills 
that bounded the way, some of the foremost at length 
reached the top of the last hill, and, stretching up 
their hands in gestures of joy, cried out, 'The Holy 
City ! the Holy City !' and fell down and worshiped ; 
while those who were behind pressed forward to see. 
So the dying Christian, when he gets on the last 
summit of life, and stretches his vision to catch a 
glimpse of the heavenly city, may cry out of its 
glories, and incite those who are behind to press for- 
ward to the sight." 



86 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

Happiness in a Surrender of the Will. 

" Since I have lost my will I have found happiness. 
There can be no such thing as disappointment to me, 
for I have no desires but that God's will may be 
accomplished. 

" I have been all my life like a child whose father 
wishes to fix his undivided attention. At first, the 
child runs about the room, but his father ties up his 
feet ; he then plays with his hands, until they like- 
wise are tied. Thus he continues to do, till he is 
completely tied up ; then, when he can do nothing 
else, he will attend to his father. Just so God has 
been dealing with me, to induce me to place my 
happiness with him alone. But I blindly continued 
to look for it here. And God has kept cutting off 
one source of enjoyment after another, till I find 
that I can do without them all, and yet enjoy more 
happiness than ever in my life before/' 

The Happy Cripple. 

" Christians might avoid much trouble and incon- 
venience if they would only believe what they profess 
— that God is' able to make them happy without any 
thing else. They imagine that if such a dear friend 
were to die, or such and such blessings to be re- 
moved, they should be miserable ; whereas God can 
make them a thousand times happier without them. 
To mention my own case — God has been depriving 
me of one blessing after another ; but as every one 
was removed, he has come in and filled up its place ; 
and now, when I am a cripple, and not able to move, 
I am happier than ever I was in my life before, or 



' Selections from his Works. 87 

ever expected to be, and, if I had believed this 
twenty years ago, I might have been spared much 
anxiety. 

" If God had told me some time ago that he was 
about to make me as happy as I could be in this 
world, and then had told me that he should begin by 
crippling me in all my limbs, and removing me from 
all my usual sources of enjoyment, I should have 
thought it a very strange mode of accomplishing his 
purpose. And yet, how is his wisdom manifest even 
in this! for if you should see a man shut up in a 
close room, idolizing a set of lamps, and rejoicing in 
their light, and you wished to make him truly happy, 
you would begin by blowing out all his lamps, and 
then throw open the shutters, to let in the light of 
heaven." 

An Assemblage of Motives to Holiness, 

" What an assemblage of motives to holiness does 
the Gospel present ! I am a Christian — what then ? 
Why, I am a redeemed sinner — a pardoned rebel — 
all through grace, and by the most wonderful means 
which infinite wisdom could devise. I am a Chris- 
tian — what then ? Why, I am a temple of God, and 
surely I ought to be pure and holy. I am a Chris- 
tian — what then ? I am a child of God, and ought 
to be filled with filial love, reverence, joy, and grati- 
tude. I am a Christian — what then ? Why, I am a 
disciple of Christ, and must imitate Him who was 
meek and lowly in heart, and pleased not himself. I 
am a Christian — what then ? Why, I am an heir of 
heaven, and hastening on to the abodes of the blessed, 
to join the full choir of glorified ones, in singing the 



88 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

song of Moses and the Lamb ; and surely I ought to 
learn that song on earth." 

An Overflowing Fountain. 

" Look back to the time when God existed inde- 
pendent and alone ; when there was nothing but God ; 
no heavens, no earth, no angels, no men. How 
wretched should we be, how wretched would any 
creature be, in such a situation ! But Jehovah was 
then infinitely happy— happy beyond all possibility 
of increase. He is an overflowing fountain, a bot- 
tomless and shoreless ocean, of being, perfection, 
and happiness ; and when this infinite ocean over- 
flows, suns and worlds, angels and men, start into 
existence." 

"I Am that I Am? 

" I would ask you to pause and contemplate, for a 
moment, this wonderful Being. But where shall we 
stand to take a view of him ? When we wish to con- 
template the ocean, we take our stand upon its shore. 
But this infinite ocean of being and perfection has no 
shore. There is no place where we can stand to look 
at him, for he is in us, around us, above us, below us. 
Yet, in another sense, there is no place where we 
may not look at him, for he is every-where. We 
see nothing which he has not made, no motion 
which he does not cause ; for he is all, and above 
all, God over all, blessed forever. Even he himself 
cannot tell us fully what he is, for our minds cannot 
take it in. He can only say to us, I Am that I Am. 
I am Jehovah." 



Selections from his Works. 89 

Eternity of God. 

" Try, for a moment, to conceive of a Being with- 
out a beginning ; a Being who does not become older 
as ages roll away. Fly back, in imagination, millions 
of millions of millions of years, till reason is con- 
founded, and fancy wearied in the flight. God then 
existed, and, what may at first appear paradoxical, he 
had then existed as long as he has now ; you would 
then be no nearer the beginning of his existence than 
you are now, for it has no beginning, and you cannot 
approach to that which does not exist. Nor will this 
being ever come to an end. Add together ages of 
ages ; multiply them by the leaves on the trees, the 
sand on the sea-shore, and the dust of the earth, still 
you will be no nearer the termination of Jehovah's 
existence than when you first began your calculation. 
And let us remember that the duration of his exist- 
ence is the only measure of our own. As it respects 
futurity, we are all as immortal as Jehovah himself." 

Love of God. 

" In the words, ' God is love/ we have a perfect 
portrait of the eternal and incomprehensible Jehovah, 
drawn by his own unerring hand. The mode of ex- 
pression here adopted differs materially from that 
usually employed by the inspired writers in speaking 
of the divine perfections. They say, God is merciful, 
God is just, God is holy ; but never do they say, God 
is mercy, God is justice, God is holiness. In this in- 
stance, on the contrary, the apostle, instead of saying, 
God is loving, or good, or kind, says God is love, love 
itself. By this expression we must understand that 



90 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

God is all pure, unmixed love, and that the other 
moral perfections of his character are only so many 
modifications of this love. Thus his justice, his 
mercy, his truth, his faithfulness, are but so many 
different names of his love or goodness. As the light 
which proceeds from the sun may easily be separated 
into many different colors, so the holy love of God, 
which is the light and glory of his nature, may be 
separated into a variety of moral attributes and per- 
fections. But, though separated, they are still love. 
His whole nature and essence are love ; his will, his 
works, and his words, are love ; he is nothing, can 
do nothing, but love." 

Folly and Absurdity ! 

" Would you not consider a person foolish and ab- 
surd who should extravagantly love and prize a drop 
of stagnant water, and yet view the ocean with indif- 
ference or disgust ? or who should constantly grovel 
in the dust to admire a shining grain of sand, yet 
neglect to admire the sun which caused it to shine? 
Of what folly and absurdity, then, are we guilty when 
we love the imperfectly amiable qualities of our fellow- 
worms, or admire the sublimity and beauty of the 
works of nature, and yet exercise no love to Him to 
whom they are indebted for all ; Him whose glory 
gilds the heavens, and from whom angels derive every 
thing that can excite admiration or love." 

A Rebellious Will — Illustration. 

" Suppose that the members of our bodies, instead 
of being controlled by the will of the head, had each 
a separate, independent will of its own : would they 



Selections from his Works. 91 

not, in this case, become useless, and even mischiev- 
ous ? Something like this, you are sensible, occasion- 
ally takes place. In certain diseases, the members 
seem to escape from the control of the will, and act 
as if they were governed by a separate will of their 
own. When this is the case, terrible consequences 
often ensue. The teeth shut suddenly and violently, 
and lacerate the tongue ; the elevated hands beat the 
face and other parts of the body ; the feet refuse to 
support it, and it rolls in the dust a melancholy and 
frightful spectacle. Such effects we call convulsions. 
There are convulsions in the moral as well as in the 
natural world, and they take place when the will of 
man refuses to be controlled by the will of God. Did 
all men submit cordially to his will, they would live 
together in love and harmony, and, like members of 
a healthy body, would all promote each others wel- 
fare, and that of the whole system. But they have 
refused to obey his will, and have set up their own 
wills in opposition to it ; and what has been the con- 
sequence ? Convulsions, most terrible convulsions, 
which have, in ten thousand thousand instances, led 
one member of this great body to injure another ; and 
not only disturbed, but almost destroyed the peace of 
society. What are wars, insurrections, revolutions ? 
What are robberies, piracies, murders, but convulsions 
in the moral world ? convulsions which would never 
have occurred, had not the will of man refused to 
submit to the will of God. And never will these con- 
vulsions cease, never will universal love, and peace, 
and happiness prevail, until the rebellious will of man 
shall again submit to the controlling will of God, and 
his will shall be done on earth as it is in heaven." 



92 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

An Angel Visitor Astonished. 

"Should an angel who knew nothing of our char- 
acters, but who had heard of the blessings which God 
has bestowed on us, visit this world, would he not 
expect to find every part of it resounding with the 
praises of God and his love ? Would he not expect 
to hear old and young, parents and children, all bless- 
ing God for the glad tidings of the Gospel, and cry- 
ing, Hosanna to the Son of David ? How, then, 
would he be grieved and disappointed ! How aston- 
ished to find that Being whom he had ever heard 
praised in the most rapturous strains by all the 
bright armies of heaven, slighted, disobeyed, and 
dishonored, by his creatures on earth ! Would you 
not be ashamed, would you not blush to look such a 
visitor in the face? to tell him how little you have 
done for God, tell him that you are not one of his 
servants ? O, then, let us strive to wipe away this 
foul stain, this disgrace to our race and our world. 
Let not this world be the only place, except hell, 
where God is not praised. Let us not be the only 
creatures, except devils, who refuse to praise him." 

The World the Diana of its Inhabitants. 

"The world is, in some form or other, the great 
Diana, the grand idol of all its inhabitants, so long 
as they continue in their natural sinful state. They 
bow down to it ; they worship it ; they spend and are 
spent for it ; they educate their children in its serv- 
ice ; their hearts, their minds, their memories, their 
imaginations, are full of it ; their tongues speak of it ; 
their hands grasp it ; their feet pursue it. In a word, 



Selections from his Works. 93 

it is all in all to them, while they give scarcely a word, 
a look, or a thought to Him who made and preserves 
them, and who is really all in all. Thus men rob 
God of their bodies and spirits, which are his, and 
practically say, We are our own ; who is Lord 
over us ? " 

Our Treatment of the Word of God a Test. 

" From the manner in which we habitually treat 
the Bible, we may learn what are our feelings and 
dispositions toward God ; for as we treat the word of 
God, so should we treat God himself were he to come 
and reside among us, in a human form, as he once 
dwelt on earth in the form of his Son, The contents 
of Scripture are a perfect transcript of the divine 
mind. If, then, God should come to dwell among us, 
he would teach the same things that the Scriptures 
teach, and pronounce upon us the same sentence that 
they pronounce. We should therefore feel toward 
him as we now feel toward them. If we reverence, 
and love, and obey the Scriptures, then we should 
reverence, love, and obey God. But if we dislike or 
disbelieve the Scriptures, if we seldom study them, 
or read them only with indifference or neglect, we 
should treat God in the same manner. Never would 
he be a welcome guest in a family where his word is 
neglected." 

Neglect of Prayer — Its Practical Import. 

"The man who refuses, or neglects to pray, who 
regards prayer not as a privilege, but as a wearisome 
and needless task, practically says, in the most un- 
equivocal manner, I am not dependent on God ; I 



94 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

want nothing that he can give ; and therefore I will 
not come to him, nor ask any favor at his hands. I 
will not ask him to crown my exertions with success, 
for I am able and determined to be the architect of 
my own fortune. I will not ask him to instruct or 
guide me, for I am fully competent to be my own in- 
structor and guide. I will not ask him to strengthen 
and support me, for I am strong in the vigor and re- 
sources of my own mind. I will not request his pro- 
tection, for I am able to protect myself. I will not 
implore his pardoning mercy nor his sanctifying 
grace, for I need, I desire, neither the one nor the 
other. .1 will not ask his presence and aid in the 
hour of death, for I can meet and grapple, unsup- 
ported, with the king of terrors, and enter, undaunted 
and alone, any unknown world into which he may 
usher me. Such is the language of all who neglect 
prayer." 

The Sinners Wish. 

"My friends, God offers you the water of life, 
without money and without price. Every one may 
come and take it if he will ; and is not this suffi- 
cient ? Would you have the water of life forced upon 
you ? What is it that you wish ? My friends, I will 
tell you what you wish. You wish to live as you 
please here, to disobey your Creator, to neglect your 
Saviour, to fulfill the desires of the flesh and of the 
mind, and at death to be admitted into a kind of 
sensual paradise, where you may taste again the 
same pleasures which you enjoyed on earth. You 
wish that God should break his word, stain his 
justice, purity, and truth, and sacrifice the honor of 



Selections from his Works. 95 

his law, his own rightful authority, and the best inter- 
ests of the universe, to the gratification of your sinful 
propensities." 

Christian Experience against Infidel Objections. 

" Suppose that, while you are dying of a fatal dis- 
ease, a medicine of great reputed efficacy is offered 
you, on making trial of which, you find yourself re- 
stored to health and activity. Full of joy and grati- 
tude, you propose the remedy to others afflicted with 
the same disease. One of these persons replies to 
you, ' 1 am surprised that you place so much faith in 
the virtues of this medicine. How do you know it 
was really discovered by the person whose name it 
bears ? Or, even if it were, it is so many years ago, 
and the medicine has passed through so many hands 
since, that it is probably corrupted, or perhaps some 
other has been substituted in the place of the genuine 
medicine/ Says another, 'It may not be suited to 
the constitutions of men in this age, though it was 
undoubtedly useful to those who first used it/ ' The 
disease and the cure are both equally imaginary/ 
says a third. 'There are many other remedies of 
equal or superior efficacy/ objects a fourth. 'None 
of the most celebrated physicians recommend it/ 
replies a fifth ; while a sixth attempts to silence you 
by objecting to the vials in which it is put tip, and 
repeating that boxes would have been more suitable. 
What weight would all these objections have with 
you ? Would they induce you to throw away the 
healing balm, whose effects you even then felt, send- 
ing life, and health, and vigor through your whole 
frame? Even thus may infidels and cavilers urge 



96 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

objections against the Gospel ; but the Christian 
heeds them not, for he has felt in his own soul its 
life-giving power." 

Christianity as a Delusion. 

" Surely, if Christianity be a delusion, it is a blessed 
delusion indeed ; and he who attempts to destroy it 
is an enemy to mankind. It is a delusion which 
teaches us to do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly 
with our God ; a delusion which teaches us to love 
our Maker supremely, and our neighbor as ourselves ; 
a delusion which bids us love, forgive, and pray for 
our enemies, render good for evil, and promote the 
glory of God and the happiness of our fellow-creatures 
by every means in our power ; a delusion which, 
wherever it is received, produces a humble, meek, 
charitable, and peaceful temper, and which, did it 
universally prevail, would banish wars, vice, and mis- 
ery from the world. It is a delusion which not only 
supports and comforts its believers in their weari- 
some progress through this vale of tears, but attends 
them in death, when all other consolations fail, and 
enables them to triumph over sorrows, sickness, 
anguish, and the grave. If delusion can do this, in 
delusion let me live and die ; for what could the most 
blessed reality do more ? " 

Insufficiency of Human Reason. 

"Viewed through any other medium than that of 
revelation, man is a riddle which man cannot ex- 
pound ; a being composed of inconsistencies and 
contradictions which unassisted reason must forever 
seek in vain to reconcile. In vain does she endeavor 



Selections from his Works. 97 

to ascertain the origin, object, and end of his exist- 
ence. In vain does she inquire in what his duty and 
happiness consist. In vain does she ask what is his 
present concern, and what his future destination. 
Wherever she turns for information, she is soon lost 
in a labyrinth of doubts and perplexities, and finds 
the progress of her researches interrupted by a cloud 
of obscurity which the rays of her feeble lamp are in- 
sufficient to penetrate. 

" Suppose you should see a man carrying a little 
glimmering taper in his hand at noonday, with his 
back turned to the sun, and foolishly endeavoring to 
persuade himself and others that he had no need of 
the sun, and that his taper gave more light than that 
glorious luminary: how amazingly great would be 
his folly ! Yet this illustration very feebly represents 
the folly of those who walk in the sparks of their own 
kindling, while they disregard the glorious Sun of 
righteousness. ,, 

Natural Religion a Failure. 

" I know that those who hate and despise the re- 
ligion of Jesus, because it condemns their evil deeds, 
have endeavored to deprive him of the honor of com- 
municating to mankind the glad tidings of life and 
immortality. I know that they have dragged the 
moldering carcass of paganism from the grave, ani- 
mated her lifeless form with a spark stolen from the 
sacred altar, arrayed her in the spoils of Christianity, 
re-enlightened her extinguished taper at the torch 
of revelation, dignified her with the name of Natural 
Religion, and exalted her in the temple of reason, as 

a goddess able, without divine assistance, to guide 

7 



98 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

mankind to truth and happiness. But.we also know 
that all her boasted pretensions are vain — the off- 
spring of ignorance, wickedness, and pride. We 
know that she is indebted to that revelation which 
she presumes to ridicule and condemn for every 
semblance of truth or energy which she displays. We 
know that the most she can do is to find men blind 
and leave them so ; and to lead them still further 
astray, in a labyrinth of vice, delusion, and wretched- 
ness. This is incontrovertibly evident, both from 
past and present experience ; and we may defy her 
most eloquent advocates to produce a single instance 
in which she has enlightened or reformed mankind. 
If, as is often asserted, she is able to guide us in the 
path of truth and happiness, why has she ever suf- 
fered her votaries to remain a prey to vice and igno- 
rance ? Why did she not teach the learned Egyptians 
to abstain from worshiping their leeks and onions ? 
Why not instruct the polished Greeks to renounce 
their sixty thousand gods ? Why not persuade the 
enlightened Romans to abstain from adoring their 
deified murderers ? Why not prevail on the wealthy 
Phoenicians to refrain from sacrificing their infants 
to Saturn ? Or, if it was a task beyond her power 
to enlighten the ignorant multitude, reform their bar- 
barous and abominable superstitions, and teach them 
that they were immortal beings, why did she not, at 
least, instruct their philosophers in the great doctrine 
of the immortality of the soul, which they earnestly 
labored in vain to discover ? They enjoyed the light 
of reason and natural religion in its fullest extent ; 
yet so far were they from ascertaining the nature of 
our future and eternal existence, that they could not 



Selections from his Works. 99 

determine whether we could exist at all beyond the 
grave ; nor could all their advantages preserve them 
from the grossest errors and most unnatural crimes." 

The Height of Folly and Madness. 

" What would you say of a man who should throw 
away his compass because he could not tell why it 
points to the north ? or reject an accurate chart be- 
cause it did not include a delineation of coasts which 
he never expected to visit, and with which he had no 
concern ? What would you say of a man who should 
reject all the best astronomical treatises because they 
do not describe the inhabitants of the moon and of 
the planets ; or who should treat with contempt every 
book which does not answer all the questions that may 
be asked respecting the subject of which it treats ? 
Or, to come still nearer to the point, what would you 
say of a man who, when sick of a mortal disease, 
should refuse an infallible remedy unless the physi- 
cian would first tell him how he took the disease, 
how such diseases first entered the world, why they 
were permitted to enter it, and by what secret laws 
or virtues the offered remedy would effect his cure ? 
Would you not say a man so unreasonable deserves 
to die ? He must be left to suffer for his folly. Now 
this is precisely the case of those who neglect the 
Bible, because it does not reveal those secret things 
which belong to God. Your souls are assailed by 
fatal diseases, by diseases which have destroyed mill- 
ions of your fellow-creatures, which already occasion 
you much suffering, and which, you are assured, w T ill 
terminate in death unless removed. An infallible 
Physician is revealed to you in the Bible, who has, at 



ioo Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

a great expense, provided a certain remedy ; and this 
remedy he- offers you freely, without money and with- 
out price. But you refuse to take this remedy be- 
cause he does not think it necessary to answer every 
question which can be asked respecting the origin of 
your disease, the introduction of such diseases into 
the world, and the reasons why they were ever per- 
mitted to enter it. Tell me, you exclaim, how I be- 
came sick, or I will not consent to be well. If this 
be not the height of folly and madness, what is it ? 

" We have not the smallest reason to suppose that, 
if God had revealed all those secret things which be- 
long to him, it would have made it more easy than it 
is now to know and perform our duty. Suppose, for 
instance, that God should answer all the questions 
which may be asked respecting the origin of moral 
evil and its introduction into the world ; would this 
knowledge at all assist us in banishing evil from the 
world, or from our own bosoms ? As well might we 
pretend that a knowledge of the precise manner in 
which a man was killed would enable us to restore 
him to life. Or, should God inform us of the manner 
in which divinity and humanity are united in the 
person of Jesus Christ, would this knowledge assist 
us in performing any one of the duties we owe the 
Saviour? As well might we pretend that a knowl- 
edge of the manner in which our souls are united to 
our bodies would assist us in performing any of the 
common actions of life." 

Two Sets of Armor. 

"The armor with which Satan furnishes his fol- 
lowers is directly the reverse of that Christian armor 



Selections from his Works, ioi 

described by the Apostle Paul. Instead of a girdle 
of truth, he girds the sinner with the girdle of error 
and deceit. Instead of the breastplate of Christ's 
righteousness, he furnishes him with a breastplate of 
his own fancied righteousness. Instead of the shield 
of faith, the sinner has the shield of unbelief; and 
with this he defends himself against the curses of the 
law and the arrows of conviction. Instead of the 
sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, he 
teaches him to yield the sword of a tongue set on 
fire of hell, and furnishes him with a magazine of 
cavils, excuses, and objections, with which to attack 
religion and defend himself. He also builds him 
many refuges of lies, in which, as in a strong 
castle, he proudly hopes to shelter himself from 
the wrath of God." 

God Meets the Sinners Excuses. 

" Numerous as are the excuses which sinners 
make when urged to embrace the Gospel, they may 
all be reduced to three. The first is, that they have 
no time to attend to religion ; the second is, that they 
do not know how to become religious ; and the third, 
that they are not able to become so. Want of time, 
want of knowledge, or want of power, is pleaded by 
all. Foreseeing that they would make these excuses, 
God determined that they should have no reason to 
make them. By giving them the Sabbath, he has 
allowed them time for religion ; by giving them his 
word, and messengers to explain it, he has taken 
away the excuse of ignorance ; and by offering them 
the assistance of his Holy Spirit, he has deprived 
them of the pretense that they are unable to obey 



102 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

him. Thus he has obviated all their excuses ; and 
therefore, at the last day, every mouth will be stopped, 
and the whole impenitent world will stand guilty and 
self-condemned before God." 

A Change of Position — Results. 

" When a man stands with his back to the sun, his 
own shadow and the shadows of surrounding objects 
are before him. But when he turns toward the sun, 
all these shadows are behind him. It is the same in 
spiritual things. God is the great Sun of the universe. 
Compared with him, creatures are but shadows. But 
while men stand with their backs to God, all these 
shadows are before them, and engross their affections, 
desires, and exertions. On the contrary, when they 
are converted, and turn to God, all these shadows are 
thrown behind them, and God becomes all in all, so 
that they can say from the heart, Whom have we in 
heaven but thee ? and there is none upon earth that 
we desire besides thee." 

Christ a Magnet. 

" Suppose you wished to separate a quantity of 
brass and steel filings, mixed together in one vessel, 
how would you effect this separation ? Apply a load- 
stone, and immediately every particle of iron will 
attach itself to it, while the brass remains behind. 
Thus if we see a company of true and false professors 
of religion, we may not be able to distinguish be- 
tween them ; but let Christ come among them, and 
all his sincere followers will be attracted toward him, 
as the steel is drawn to the magnet, while those who 
have none of his spirit will remain at a distance." 



Selections from his Works. 103 

Adam our Federal Head. 

" It is sometimes asked how it can be right that 
we should suffer in consequence of the sins of our 
first parents. In the first place, it is right because 
we imitate their example, and thus justify their con- 
duct. We break the covenant, and disobey the law 
of God, as well as they. Another answer may be 
given by considering the subject in a different light. 
The angels who kept not their first estate had no 
covenant head, or representative, but each one stood 
for himself. Yet they fell. God was therefore pleased, 
when he made man, to adopt a different constitution 
of things ; and since it had appeared that holy beings, 
endowed with every possible advantage for obeying 
God's law, would disobey it and ruin themselves, he 
thought proper, instead of leaving us, like the angels, 
to stand for ourselves, to appoint a covenant head or 
representative to stand for us, and to enter into cov- 
enant with him. Now let us suppose, for a moment, 
that we and all the human race had been brought 
into existence at once, and that God had proposed to 
us that we should choose one of our number to be 
our representative, and to enter into covenant with 
him on our behalf. Should we not, with one voice, 
have chosen our first parent for this responsible 
office ? Should we not have said, ' He is a perfect 
man, and bears the image and likeness of God ; if any 
one must stand or fall for us, let him be the man ? ' 
Now since the angels, who stood for themselves, fell, 
why should we wish to stand for ourselves ? And if 
we must have a representative to stand for us, why 
should we complain, when God has chosen the same 



104 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

person for this office that we should have chosen had 
we been in existence and capable of choosing for 
ourselves ? " 

The Attributes of God Harmonized in Redemption, 

" In the plan of redemption God appears to be, at 
once, a just God and a Saviour ; thus he can be just 
and yet the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus ; 
and justice and truth, as well as mercy and peace, 
will welcome to heaven every redeemed sinner who 
is brought there through the merits of Christ. Thus 
we see that these divine attributes, which were set at 
variance by the fall of the first Adam, are re-united 
and satisfied by the atonement of the second. Mercy 
may now say, I am satisfied, for my petitions in be- 
half of wretched man have been answered, and count- 
less millions of that ruined race will sing the praises of 
boundless mercy for ever and ever. Truth may say, 
I am satisfied, for God's veracity and faithfulness 
remain inviolate, notwithstanding the salvation of 
sinners ; and not one word that he has ever spoken 
has failed of its full accomplishment. Justice may 
say, I am satisfied, for the honor of the law over 
which I watch has been secured ; sin has met with 
deserved punishment ; the Prince of life has died to 
satisfy my claims ; and God has shown the whole 
universe that he loves me, even better than he loves 
his only Son ; for when that Son cried, in agony, 
Father, spare me, and I demanded that he should 
not be spared, God listened to my demands rather 
than to his cries. Finally, Peace may say, I am 
satisfied, for I have been permitted to proclaim peace 
on earth, and have seen God reconciling a rebellious 



Selections from his Works. 105 

world to himself. Come, then, my sister attributes, 
Mercy, Truth, and Righteousness, let us once more 
be united in perfect harmony, and join to admire the 
plan which thus reconciles us to each other." 

A New Lesson for Angels. 

" In this work creatures may see, if I may so ex- 
press it, the very heart of God. From this work 
angels themselves have probably learned more of 
God's moral character than they had ever been able 
to learn before. They knew before that God was 
wise and powerful ; for they had seen him create a 
world. They knew that he was good ; for he had 
made them perfectly holy and happy. They knew 
that he was just ; for they had seen him cast down 
their own rebellious brethren from heaven to hell for 
their sins. But until they saw him give repentance 
and remission of sins through Christ, they did not 
know that he was merciful ; they did not know that 
he could pardon a sinner. And O ! what an hour 
was that in heaven when this great truth was first 
made known — when the first penitent was pardoned ! 
Then a new song was put into the mouths of angels ; 
and while, with unutterable emotions of wonder, love, 
and praise, they began to sing it, their voices swelled 
to a higher pitch, and they experienced joys unfelt 
before. O how did the joyful sounds, His mercy en- 
dureth forever ! spread from choir to choir, echo 
through the high arches of heaven, and thrill through 
every enraptured angelic breast ; and how did they 
cry, with one voice, Glory to God in the highest, on 
earth peace, good-will toward man ! " 



io6 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

The Glory that Shines in the Gospel. 

" On no page less ample than that of the eternal, 
all-infolding Mind which devised the Gospel plan of 
salvation can its glories be displayed ; nor by any 
inferior mind can they be fully comprehended. Suf- 
fice it to say, that here the moral character of Jehovah 
shines full-orbed and complete. Here all the full- 
ness of the Godhead, all the insufferable splendors of 
Deity, burst at once upon our aching sight. Here 
the manifold perfections of God, holiness and good- 
ness, justice and mercy, truth and grace, majesty and 
condescension, hatred of sin and compassion for sin- 
ners, are harmoniously blended, like the parti-colored 
rays of solar light, in one pure blaze of dazzling white- 
ness. Here, rather than on any other of his works, 
he founds his claims to the highest admiration, grati- 
tude, and love of his creatures. Here is the work 
which ever has called forth, and which through eter- 
nity will continue to call forth; the most rapturous 
praises of the celestial choirs, and feed the ever-glow- 
ing fires of devotion in their breasts ; for the glory 
which shines in the Gospel is the glory which illumi- 
nates heaven, and the Lamb that was slain is the 
light thereof." 

" Glad Tidings ! Glad Tidings ! " 

" Do any doubt whether the Gospel is indeed glad 
tidings of great joy? Come with me to the Garden 
of Eden. Look back to the hour which succeeded 
man's apostasy. See the golden chain which bound 
man to God and God to man sundered, apparently 
forever, and this wretched world, groaning under the 



Selections from his Works. 107 

weight of human guilt and its Maker's curse, sinking 
down, far down, into a bottomless abyss of misery 
and despair. See that tremendous Being who is a 
consuming fire encircling it on every side, and wrap- 
ping it, as it were, in an atmosphere of flame. Hear 
from his lips the tremendous sentence, Man has 
sinned, and man must die ! See the king of terrors 
advancing with gigantic strides to execute the awful 
sentence, the grave expanding her marble jaws to 
receive whatever might fall before his wide-wasting 
scythe, and hell beneath, yawning dreadfully, to en- 
gulf forever its guilty, helpless, despairing victims. 
Such was the situation of our ruined race after the 
apostasy. Endeavor, if you can, to realize its horrors. 
Endeavor to forget, for a moment, that you ever 
heard of Christ or his Gospel. View yourselves as 
immortal beings hastening to eternity, with the curse 
of God's broken law, like a flaming sword, pursuing 
you ; death, with his dart dipped in mortal poison, 
awaiting you ; a dark cloud, fraught with the light- 
nings of divine vengeance, rolling over your heads ; 
your feet standing in slippery places, in darkness, 
and the bottomless pit beneath expecting your fall. 
Then, when not only all hope, but all possibility of 
escape, seemed taken away, suppose the flaming 
sword suddenly quenched ; the sting extracted ; the 
Sun of Righteousness bursting forth and painting a 
rainbow on the before threatening cloud ; a golden 
ladder let down from the opening gates of heaven, 
while a choir of angels, swiftly descending, exclaim, 
' Behold, we bring you glad tidings of great joy, for 
unto you is born a Saviour who is Christ the Lord/ 
Would you, could you, while contemplating such a 



108 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

scene, and listening to the angelic message, doubt 
whether it communicated glad tidings ? Would you 
not rather unite with them in exclaiming, ' Glad tid- 
ings ! Glad tidings ! Glory to God in the highest, that 
there is peace on earth, and good-will toward men/ ' 

Christ an Unrivaled Friend, 

" Does not our Friend as far excel all other friends 
as heaven exceeds earth, as eternity exceeds time, as 
the Creator surpasses his creatures ? If you doubt 
this, bring together all the glory, pomp, and beauty 
of the world ; nay, assemble every thing that is great 
and excellent in all the worlds that ever were created ; 
collect all the creatures which the breath of Omnipo- 
tence ever summoned into being — and we, on our 
parts, will place beside them our Saviour and Friend, 
that you may see whether they will bear a compari- 
son with him. Look, then, first at your idols ; be- 
hold the vast assemblage which you have collected, 
and then turn and contemplate our Beloved. See all 
the fullness of the Godhead dwelling in One who is 
meek and lowly as a child. See his countenance 
beaming with ineffable glories, full of mingled majesty, 
condescension, and love, and hear the soul-reviving 
invitations which proceed from his lips. See that 
hand in which dwells everlasting strength, swaying 
the scepter of universal empire over all creatures and 
all worlds ; see his arms expanded to receive and 
embrace returning sinners ; while his heart, a bot- 
tomless, shoreless ocean of benevolence, overflows 
with tenderness, compassion, and love. In a word, 
see in him all natural and moral excellence, personi- 
fied and embodied in a resplendent form, compared 



Selections from his Works. 109 

with whose effulgent, dazzling glories the splendors 
of the meridian sun are dark. He speaks, and a 
world emerges from nothing. He frowns, and it 
sinks to nothing again. He waves his hand, and all 
the creatures which you have collected to rival him 
sink and disappear. Such, O sinner, is our Beloved, 
and such is our Friend. Will you not then embrace 
him as your Friend ? If you can be persuaded to do 
this, you will find that the one half, nay, that the 
thousandth part, has not been told you." 

The Sage and the Pupil. 

"A celebrated philosopher of antiquity, who was 
accustomed to receive large sums from his pupils in 
return for his instructions, was one day accosted by 
an indigent youth -who requested admission into the 
number of his disciples. ' And what/ said the sage, 
* will you give me in return ? ' 'I will give you my- 
self/ was the reply. ' I accept the gift/ answered the 
sage, ' and engage to restore you to yourself, at some 
future period, much more valuable than you are at 
present/ In similar language does our great Teacher 
address those who apply to him for instruction, con- 
scious that they are unable to purchase his instruc- 
tions, and offering to give him themselves. He will 
readily accept the gift ; he will educate them for 
heaven, and will, at length, restore them to them- 
selves, incomparably more wise, more happy, and 
more valuable, than when he received them." 

The Three Occasions of Christ's Anger. 

"We read of Christ being angry but three times 
during the whole period of his residence on earth, 



no Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

and in each of those instances his anger was excited, 
not by insults and injuries offered to himself, but by 
conduct which tended to interrupt or frustrate his 
benevolent exertions in doing good. When he was 
reviled as a man gluttonous, intemperate, and pos- 
sessed by a devil, he was not angry ; when he was 
buffeted, spit upon, and crowned with thorns, he was 
not angry ; when nailed to the cross, and loaded with 
insults in his last agonies, he was not angry. But 
when his disciples forbade parents to bring their 
infant children to receive his blessing ; when Peter 
endeavored to dissuade him from dying for sinners; 
and when sinners, by their hardness of heart, ren- 
dered his intended death of no service to themselves ; 
then he was angry and much displeased." 

The Sufferings of Christ Real. 

" It has been supposed by many that the sufferings 
of Christ were rather apparent than real ; or at least 
that his abundant consolations, and his knowledge 
of the happy consequences which would result from 
his death, rendered his sorrows comparatively light, 
and almost converted them to joys. But never was 
supposition more erroneous. Jesus Christ was as 
truly a man as either of us ; and, as man, he was as 
really susceptible of grief, as keenly alive to pain and 
reproach, and as much averse from pain and suffer- 
ing, as any of the descendants of Adam. And 
though a knowledge of the happy consequences 
which would result from his sufferings rendered him 
willing to endure them, it did not in the smallest de- 
gree take off their edge, or render him insensible to 
pain. No, his sufferings, instead of being less, were 



Selections from his Works. hi 

incomparably greater than they appeared to be. No 
finite mind can conceive of their extent ; nor was any 
of the human race ever so well entitled to the appella- 
tion of the Man of Sorrows as the man Jesus Christ. 
" As Christ died for all, so he felt and wept for the 
sufferings of all. The temporal and eternal calamities 
of the whole human race, and of every individual 
among them all, seemed to be collected and laid upon 
him. He saw, at one view, the whole mighty aggre- 
gate of human guilt and human wretchedness, and 
his boundless benevolence and compassion made it, 
by sympathy, all his own. It has been said by phi- 
losphers, that if any man could see all the misery 
which is daily felt in the world he would never smile 
again. We need not wonder, then, that Christ, who 
saw it all, never smiled, though he often wept." 

The Power of Love. 

" How infinite, how inconceivable, must have been 
that love which brought down the Son of God from 
the celestial world to redeem our ruined race ! which 
led him to exchange the bosom of his Father for a 
vail of flesh ; the adoration of angels for the scoffs 
and insults of sinners ; and the enjoyment of eternal 
life for an accursed, painful, and ignominious death ! 
Nothing but love could have done this. Not all the 
powers of heaven, earth, and hell combined could 
have dragged him from his celestial throne, and 
wrested the scepter of the universe from his hands. 
No, it was love alone — divine, omnipotent love — which 
drew him down ; it was in the bands of love that he 
was but a willing captive, through all the trials and 
sufferings of a laborious life ; and it was these bands 



H2 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

which bound him at the bar of Pilate, which fettered 
his arm of everlasting strength, and prevented his 
blasting his murderers." 

Christ's Self-Denial. 

"The life of Christ was one of self-denial. He 
denied himself, for thirty years, all the glories and 
felicity of the heavenly world, and exposed himself 
to all the pains and sorrows of a life on earth. He 
denied himself the praises and adorations of saints 
and angels, and exposed himself to the blasphemies 
and reproaches of men. He denied himself the pres- 
ence and enjoyment of God, and exposed himself to 
the society of publicans and sinners. He denied 
himself every thing that nature desires ; he exposed 
himself to every thing she dreads and abhors — to 
poverty, contempt, pain, and death. 

When he entered on his glorious and godlike de- 
sign, he renounced all regard to his own comfort 
and convenience, and took up the cross — a cross 
infinitely heavier and more painful than any of his 
disciples had been called to bear — and continued to 
carry it through a rough and thorny road, till his 
human nature, exhausted, sunk under the weight. 
In short, he considers himself, his time, his talents, 
his reputation, his happiness, his very existence, as 
not his own but another's ; and he even employed 
them accordingly. He lived not for himself, he died 
not for himself ; but for others he lived, and for others 

he died." 

Christ Satisfied, 

" If we love, and prize, and rejoice in any object 
in proportion to the labor, pain, and expense which 



Selections from his Works. 113 

it has cost us to obtain it, how greatly must Christ 
love, and prize, and rejoice in every penitent sinner ! 
His love and joy must be unutterable, inconceivable, 
infinite. For once I rejoice that our Saviour's toils 
and sufferings were so great, since the greater they 
were the greater must be his love for us and his 
joy in our conversion. And if he thus rejoiceth over 
one sinner that repenteth, what must be his joy when 
all his people are collected, out of every tongue and 
nation, and presented spotless before his Father's 
throne ! What a full tide of felicity will pour in upon 
him, and how will his benevolent heart expand with 
unutterable delight, when, contemplating the count- 
less myriads of the redeemed, he says, Were it not 
for my sufferings, all these immortal beings would 
have been, throughout eternity, as miserable, and 
now they will be as happy, as God can make them ! 
It is enough. I see of the travail of my soul, and am 
satisfied." 

Christ s Reception of Penitent Sinners. 

" The meanest beggar, the vilest wretch, the most 
loathsome, depraved, abandoned sinner, is perfectly 
welcome to the arms and the heart of the Saviour, 
if he comes with the temper of the penitent prodigal. 
To all who come with this temper he ever lends a 
gracious ear ; he listens to catch the first penitential 
sigh ; he watches their first feeble step toward the 
path of duty ; he prevents them with his grace, has- 
tens to meet them, and, while they are ready to sink 
at his feet with mingled shame, confusion, and grief, 
he puts underneath them his everlasting arms, em- 
braces, cheers, supports, and comforts them ; wipes 



H4 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

away their tears, washes away their stains, clothes 
them with his righteousness, unites them to himself 
forever, and feeds them with the bread and water of 
life. Thus he binds up the broken reed, enkindles 
the smoking flax, and, like a most tender, compas- 
sionate shepherd, gathers the helpless lambs in his 
arms and carries them in his bosom. Thus, by the 
condescending grace of our Immanuel, heaven is 
brought down to earth ; the awful majesty and in- 
accessible glories of Jehovah are shrouded in a vail 
of flesh ; a new and living way is opened for our re- 
turn to God ; and sinful, guilty worms of the dust 
may talk with their Maker face to face, as a man 
talketh with his friend." 

Going On to Perfection. 

"The professed disciple of Christ who desponds 
and trembles when he hears his Master calling him 
to go on to perfection may derive courage and sup- 
port from looking at the promises of Christ, and at 
their Author. Among the blessings promised, you 
will find every thing which any man can need to 
assist him in arriving at perfection. There are 
promises of light and direction to find the path which 
leads to it ; promises of assistance to walk in that 
path ; promises of strength to resist and overcome 
all opposition ; promises of remedies to heal us when 
wounded, of cordials to invigorate us when faint, and 
of most glorious rewards to crown the end of our 
course. You will hear Jehovah saying, ' Fear not, for 
I am with thee ; be not dismayed, for I am thy God : 
I will strengthen thee ; yea, I will help thee ; yea, I 
will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteous- 



Selections from his Works. 115 

ness.' ' Though thou art in thyself but a worm, thou 
shalt thresh the mountains, and beat them small as 
the dust/ Look next at Him who gives these prom- 
ises. It is one who is almighty, and who therefore 
can fulfill them. It is one who cannot lie, and there- 
fore will fulfill them. It is one who possesses all 
power in heaven and on earth ; one whose treasures 
of grace are unsearchable and inexhaustible ; one in 
whom dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. 
With all this fullness faith indissolubly unites us. 
Say, then, ye who despond and tremble when you 
contemplate the almost immeasurable distance be- 
tween your own moral characters and that of Christ, 
what, except faith in these promises and in their 
Author, is necessary to support, encourage, and ani- 
mate you in going on to perfection ? If Christ him- 
self is perfect ; if faith makes you members of this 
perfect Head ; if it causes his fullness to flow into your 
souls ; then it is most evident that he can and will 
enable all who exercise faith in him to imitate his ex- 
ample, and finally to become perfect as he is perfect. 
" Let not the Christian listen to the suggestions 
of indolence, despondency, and unbelief ; but let him 
listen rather to the calls and promises of Christ. See 
what he has already done for those of our race who 
relied on his grace. Look at Enoch, who walked 
with God ; at Abraham, the friend of God ; at Moses, 
the confidential servant of God ; at Daniel, the man 
greatly beloved of God ; at Stephen, full of faith and 
the Holy Ghost ; at St. Paul, glowing with an ardor 
like that of ' the rapt seraph, who adores and burns ;* 
and at the many other worthies with whom the 
historian and biographer have made us acquainted 



n6 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

See to what heights they soared, how nearly they 
approached to perfection. And who enabled them 
to make these approaches, to soar to these heights ? 
He, I answer, who now calls upon you to follow them ; 
he who now offers you the same assistance which 
he afforded them. Rely, then, with full confidence 
on his perfections and promises, and recommence 
with new vigor your Christian warfare. Do you still 
hesitate and linger ? O thou of little faith, wherefore 
dost thou doubt ? Why cast round a trembling, de- 
sponding glance upon the roaring wind and stormy 
waves which oppose thy progress ? Look rather at 
him who calls thee onward ; at the omnipotent arm 
which is to be thy strength and support. Look till 
you feel faith, and hope, and courage reviving in 
your breast. Then say to your Lord, I come. I 
will follow where thou leadest the way. I will once 
more aim, with renovated strength, at the perfection 
which I have long deemed unattainable." 

Advantages of Possessing Christ, 

"How great are the privileges which result from 
an ability to say, Christ is mine ! If Christ is yours, 
then all that he possesses is yours. His power is 
yours, to defend you ; his wisdom and knowledge are 
yours, to guide you ; his righteousness is yours, to 
justify you ; his Spirit and grace are yours, to sanc- 
tify you ; his heaven is yours, to receive you. He is 
as much yours as you are his, and as he requires all 
that you have to be given to him, so he gives all that 
he has to you. Come to him, then, with holy bold- 
ness, and take what is your own. Remember you 
have already received what is most difficult for him 



Selections from his Works. 117 

to give — his body, his blood, his life. And surely he 
who has given these will not refuse you smaller 
blessings. You will never live happily or usefully, 
you will never highly enjoy or greatly adorn religion, 
until you can feel that Christ, and all that he pos- 
sesses, are yours, and learn to come and take them 
as your own." 

The Bible Entirely Practical 

" We may challenge any man to point out a single 
passage in the Bible which does not either teach 
some duty, or inculcate its performance, or show the 
grounds on which it rests, or exhibit reasons why we 
should perform it. For instance : all the preceptive 
parts of Scripture prescribe our duty ; all the invita- 
tions invite us to perform it ; all the promises and 
threatenings are motives to its performance ; all the 
cautions and admonitions warn us not to neglect it ; 
the historical parts inform us what have been the 
consequences of neglecting and of performing it ; the 
prophetical parts show us what these consequences 
will be hereafter ; and the doctrinal parts show us 
on what grounds the whole superstructure of duty or 
of practical religion rests." 

Earnestness in Prayer a Test. 

"We may judge of the state of our hearts by the 
earnestness of our prayers. You cannot make a rich 
man beg like a poor man ; you cannot make a man 
that is full cry for food like one who is hungry : no 
more will a man who has a good opinion of himself 
cry for mercy like one who feels that he is poor and 
needy." 



n8 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

Symptoms of Spiritual Decline. 

" The symptoms of spiritual decline are like those 
which attend the decay of bodily health. It gener- 
ally commences with loss of appetite, and a disrelish 
for spiritual food, prayer, reading the Scriptures and 
devotional books. Whenever you perceive these 
symptoms be alarmed, for your spiritual health is in 
danger ; apply immediately to the great Physician 
for a cure. 

"The best means of keeping near to God is the 
closet. Here the battle is won or lost." 

Impatience at not Receiving Answers to Prayer. 

" If a man begins to be impatient because his pray- 
ers for any blessings are not answered, it is a certain 
proof that a self-righteous dependence on his own 
merits prevails in his heart to a great extent ; for the 
language of impatience is, I deserve the blessing ; I 
had a right to expect that it would be bestowed, and 
it ought to have been bestowed ere this. It is evi- 
dent that a man who feels that he deserves nothing 
will never be impatient because he receives nothing ; 
but will say, I have nothing to complain of; I receive 
as much as I deserve. Again, when a man wonders, 
or thinks it strange, that he does not receive a bless- 
ing for which he has prayed, it shows that he relies 
on his own merits. The language of such feelings is, 
It is very strange that I, who have prayed so well 
and so long, and had so much reason to expect a 
blessing, do not receive it. Persons who feel truly 
humble, on the contrary, are surprised, not when 
blessings are withheld, but when they are bestowed. 



Selections from his Works. 119 

It appears very strange and wonderful to them that 
God should bestow any favors on creatures so un- 
worthy as themselves, or pay any regard to prayers 
so polluted as their own. This is the temper to 
which every person must be brought before God will 
answer his prayers." 

Praise Procures the Divine Blessing. 

" No one needs to be told that the surest method 
to obtain new favors from an earthly benefactor is, 
to be thankful for those which he has already be- 
stowed. It is the same with respect to our heavenly 
benefactor. Praise and thanksgiving are even more 
prevalent than sacrifices or prayers. I have some- 
where met with an account of a Christian who was 
shipwrecked upon a desolate island, while all his 
companions perished in the waves. In this situation 
he spent many days in fasting and prayer that God 
would open a way for his deliverance ; but his prayers 
received no answer. At length, musing on the good- 
ness of God in preserving him from the dangers of 
the sea, he resolved to spend a day in thanksgiving 
and praise for this and other favors. Before the con- 
clusion of the day a vessel arrived, and restored him 
in safety to his country and friends. Another in- 
stance, equally in point, we find in the history of 
Solomon. At the dedication of the temple many 
prayers were made, and many sacrifices offered, with- 
out any token of the divine acceptance. But when 
singers and players on instruments began, as one, to 
make one sound, to be heard in praising and thanking 
the Lord, saying, ' For he is good, for his mercy en- 
dureth forever' — then the glory of the Lord descended 



120 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

and filled the temple. The reason why praise and 
thanksgiving are thus prevalent with God is, that 
they, above all other duties, glorify him. * Whoso 
offereth praise/ says he, 'glorifieth me.' And those 
who do thus honor him he will honor." 

The Communion a Funeral Scene. 

"At the communion-table we are in fact assem- 
bled to attend our Saviour's funeral, to look at his 
dead body as we look at the countenance of a de- 
ceased friend before the coffin is closed. And if 
every wrong, every worldly feeling, should die away 
while we are contemplating the corpse of a friend, 
how much more ought this to be the case, when this 
friend is Christ ! It may be profitable some times to 
shut ourselves up, in imagination, in our Saviour's 
tomb, and feel as if he were there buried with us." 

Sympathy with Christ as a Man of Sorrows. 

" Was Christ a man of sorrows and acquainted with 
grief? Then, Christians, we need not be surprised 
or offended if we are often called to drink of the cup 
of sorrows ; if we find this world a vale of tears. 
This is one of the ways in which we must be con- 
formed to our glorious Head. Indeed, his example 
has sanctified grief, and almost rendered it pleasant 
to mourn. One would think that Christians could 
scarcely wish to go rejoicing through a world which 
their Master passed through mourning. The paths 
in which we follow him are bedewed with his tears, 
and stained with his blood. It is true, that from the 
ground thus watered and fertilized many rich flowers 
and fruits of paradise spring up to refresh us, in 



Selections from his Works. 121 

which we may and ought to rejoice. But still our 
joy should be softened and sanctified by godly sorrow. 
When we are partaking of the feast which his love 
has spread for us, we should never forget how dearly 
it was purchased. 

" ' There's not a gift his hand bestows 
But cost his heart a groan/ 

The joy, the honor, the glory, through eternity, shall 
be ours ; but the sorrows, the sufferings, the agonies 
which purchased it, were all his own." 

The Grand Law of Nature, 

" ' Not for ourselves, but others ' — is the grand law 
of nature, inscribed by the hand of God on every part 
of creation. Not for itself, but others, does the sun 
dispense its beams ; not for themselves, but others, 
do the clouds distill their showers ; not for herself, 
but others, does the earth unlock her treasures ; not 
for themselves, but others, do the trees produce their 
fruits, or the flowers diffuse their fragrance and dis- 
play their various hues. So, not for himself, but 
others, are the blessings of heaven bestowed on 
man ; and whenever, instead of diffusing them around, 
he devotes them exclusively to his own gratification, 
and shuts himself up in the dark and flinty caverns 
of selfishness, he transgresses the great law of crea- 
tion ; he cuts himself off from the created universe 
and its Author ; he sacrilegiously converts to his own 
use the favors which were given him for the relief of 
others, and must be considered not only as an un- 
profitable, but as a fraudulent servant, who has worse 
than wasted his Lord's money. He who thus lives 



122 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

only to himself, and consumes the bounty of heaven 
upon his lusts, or consecrates it to the demon of 
avarice, is a barren rock in a fertile plain ; he is a 
thorny bramble in a fruitful vineyard ; he is the grave 
of God's blessings ; he is the very Arabia Deserta 
of the moral world. And if he is highly exalted in 
wealth or power, he stands, inaccessible and strong, 
like an insulated towering cliff, which exhibits only a 
cold and cheerless prospect, intercepts the genial 
beams of the sun, chills the vales below with its 
gloomy shade, adds fresh keenness to the freezing 
blast, and tempts down the lightnings of angry heaven. 
How different this from the gently-rising hill, clothed 
to its summit with fruits and flowers, which attracts 
and receives the dews of heaven, and, retaining only 
sufficient to supply its numerous offspring, sends the 
remainder in a thousand streams to bless the vales 
which lie at its feet !" 

Man can do what God Requires. 

"What God calls a man to do he will carry him 
through. I would undertake to govern half a dozen 
worlds if God called me to do it ; but I would not 
undertake to govern half a dozen sheep unless God 
called me to it." 

Covetousness a Pit without a Bottom. 

" Suppose you had to pass over a pit which had no 
bottom, would you endeavor to fill it up, or bridge 
it over ? " 

A Little Court within the Breast. 

" Every thing we do or say should be immediately 
tried by a little court within our own breasts. Our 



Selections from his Works. 123 

motives should be examined, and a decision made 
on the spot." 

Contemplation of Eternity. 

"As the eye which has gazed at the sun cannot 
immediately discern any other object — as the man 
who has been accustomed to behold the ocean, turns 
with contempt from a stagnant pool — so the mind 
which has contemplated eternity overlooks and de- 
spises the things of time." 

Death the Porter of Paradise. 

" The power of death, the last enemy, is destroyed, 
as it respects all who believe in Christ. Instead of 
being the jailer of hell and the grave, he is now, as it 
respects Christ's people, the porter of paradise. All 
he can now do is to cause them to sleep in Jesus, 
release their immortal spirits from the fetters which 
bind them to earth, and deposit their weary bodies in 
the tomb, as a place of rest, till Christ comes at the 
last day, to raise them, incorruptible, glorious, and 
immortal, and reunite them to their souls in a state 
of perfect, never-ending felicity. 

Honor and Danger of the Gospel Ministry. 

"Every benevolent person is gratified by being 
made the bearer of pleasing intelligence. The mes- 
senger who is commissioned to open the prison doors 
of an insolvent debtor or pardoned criminal, and re- 
store him to the embraces of his family ; the officer 
who is sent by his commander-in-chief to carry home 
tidings of an important victory ; and still more the 
embassador who is appointed to proclaim pardon 



124 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

and peace, in his sovereign's name, to conquered 
rebels ; thinks himself, and is thought by others, to 
have received no common favor. Should God put 
into your hands the wonder-working rod of Moses ; 
should he commission and enable you to work mir- 
acles of beneficence, to enrich the poor, to comfort 
the miserable, to restore sight to the blind, hearing 
to the deaf, health to the diseased, and life to the 
dead, you would esteem it a favor and honor incom- 
parably greater than earthly monarchs can bestow. 
But in committing the Gospel to your care, God has 
conferred on you honors and favors compared with 
which even the power of working miracles is a trifle. 
He has put into your hands the cross of Christ, an 
instrument of far greater efficacy than the rod of 
Moses. He has sent you to proclaim the most joyful 
tidings that heaven can desire, or that earth can hear. 
He has sent you to preach deliverance to captives, 
the recovery of sight to the blind, the balm of Gilead 
and the great Physician to the spiritually wounded 
and diseased, salvation to the self-destroyed, and 
everlasting life to the dead. In a word, he commis- 
sions and enables them to work miracles, not upon 
the bodies, but upon the souls of men ; miracles not 
merely of power, but of grace and mercy ; miracles, 
to perform which an angel would think himself highly 
honored in being sent down from heaven ; miracles, 
from the performance of which it is difficult to say 
whether greater glory redounds to God or greater 
happiness to man. Well, then, may every minister 
of Christ exclaim with Paul, ' I thank my God for 
that he counted me faithful, putting me into the 
ministry.' 



Selections from his Works. 125 

" Though, in committing the Gospel to their trust, 
God has conferred on ministers the greatest honor 
and favor which can be given to mortals, yet, like all 
other favors, it brings with it a great increase of 
responsibility. Remember that the more highly any 
one is exalted, in this respect, the more difficult it 
becomes to stand, and the more dangerous it is to 
fall. He who falls from a pulpit seldom stops short 
of the lowest abyss in hell." 

A Thousand Years as One Day in Heaven. 

" You have, doubtless, often observed that when 
your minds have been intently and pleasingly occu- 
pied, you have become almost unconscious of the flight 
of time ; minutes and hours have flown away with, 
apparently, unusual swiftness, and the setting or ris- 
ing sun has surprised you long before you expected its 
approach. But in heaven the saints will be entirely 
lost and swallowed up in God ; and their minds will 
be so completely absorbed in the contemplation of 
his ineffable, infinite, uncreated glories, that they will 
be totally unconscious how time, or, rather, how eter- 
nity passes ; and not only years, but millions of ages, 
such as we call ages, will be flown ere they are aware. 
Thus a thousand years will seem but as one day, and 
so great, so ecstatic will be their happiness, that one 
day will be as a thousand years. And as there will 
be nothing to interrupt them, no bodily wants to 
call off their attention, no weariness to compel them 
to rest, no vicissitude of seasons or of day and night 
to disturb their contemplations, it is more than pos- 
sible that innumerable ages may pass away before 
they think of asking how long they have been in 



126 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

heaven, or even before they are conscious that a 
single hour has elapsed." 

"O What Must it Be to be There!" 

"How often, Christians, have your hearts been 
made to burn with love, and gratitude, and admira- 
tion, and joy, while Christ has opened to you the 
Scriptures, and caused you to know a little of that 
love which passeth knowledge ! How often has one 
transient glimpse of the light of God's countenance 
turned your night into day, banished your sorrows, 
supported you under heavy afflictions, and caused 
you to rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory! 
O, then, what must it be to escape forever from error, 
and ignorance, and darkness, and sin, into the region 
of bright, unclouded, eternal day ; to see your God 
and Redeemer face to face ; continually to contem- 
plate, with immortal strength, glories so dazzlingly 
bright that one moment's view of them would now, 
like a stream of lightning, turn your frail bodies into 
dust ; to see the eternal volume of the divine coun- 
sels, the mighty map of the divine mind, unfolded to 
your eager, piercing gaze ; to explore the heights and 
depths, the lengths and breadths of the Redeemer's 
love, and still to see new wonders, glories, and beau- 
ties pouring upon your minds in constant, endless 
succession, calling forth new songs of praise ; — songs 
in which you will unite, not, as now, with mortal 
companions and mortal voices, but with the innu- 
merable choir of angels, with the countless myriads 
of the redeemed, all shouting with a voice like the 
voice of many waters, Alleluia, for the Lord God 
omnipotent reigneth ! " 



Selections from his Works. 127 

The Bereaved Mother Comforted. 

" Suppose, now, some one was making a beautiful 
crown for you to wear ; and you knew it was for you, 
and that you were to receive it and wear it as soon 
as it should be done. Now, if the maker of it were 
to come, and, in order to make the crown more beau- 
tiful and splendid, were to take some of your jewels 
to put into it, — should you be sorrowful and unhappy 
because they were taken away for a little while, when 
you knew they were gone to make up your crown ? " 

Doubts Arising from Infirmities Removed. 

" Suppose you were to see a little sick child lying 
in its mothers lap, with its faculties impaired by its 
sufferings, so that it was, generally, in a troubled 
sleep ; but now and then it just opens its eyes a little, 
and gets a glimpse of its mother's face, so as to be 
recalled to the recollection that it is in its mother's 
arms ; and suppose that always, at such a time, it 
should smile faintly with evident pleasure to find 
where it was, — should you doubt whether that child 
loved its mother or not ? " 

" One Broken Wing." 

" Madam, I think your husband is looking up- 
ward — making some effort to rise above the world 
toward God and heaven. You must not let him try 
alone. Whenever I see the husband struggling alone 
in such efforts it makes me think of a dove endeav- 
oring to fly upward while it has one broken wing. 
It leaps and flutters, and perhaps raises itself a little 
way, and then it becomes wearied, and drops back 



128 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

again to the ground. If both wings co-operate then 
it mounts easily." 

How Rich the Poorest Christian. 

"A pious man once visited a friend who had re- 
cently come into possession of a very large landed 
property. His friend, after some conversation, led 
him to the top of his house, which commanded an 
extensive prospect, and directing his attention suc- 
cessively to a great number of valuable objects, added, 
after the mention of each particular, ' That is mine/ 
After he had finished the long catalogue of his pos- 
sessions, his guest asked, ' Do you see yonder cottage 
on the waste ? There lives a poor widow who can 
say more than you can ; she can say, Christ is mine/ 
My friends, did the rich man or the poor widow pos- 
sess the more valuable property ? But the very 
question is dishonorable to Christ. Could the rich 
man have pointed to the sun and moon, the planets, 
and the fixed stars, and said with truth, 'All these 
are mine ; ' still his possessions, weighed against the 
poor widow's treasure, would have been lighter than 
vanity. 

" The Creator must be worth infinitely more than 
the whole creation. He can do that for those who 
possess him which the whole creation cannot do. 
He can wash away their sins, he can sanctify their 
natures, he can support them under afflictions, he 
can prepare them for death, he can fill their souls 
with happiness, and he can make that happiness 
eternal ; neither of which the whole creation could 
do for its possessor. O how rich, then, how incalcu- 
lably rich is the poorest Christian ! He is the only 



Selections from his Works. 129 

being who is not now able and who never will be 
able to calculate the worth of his possessions. In 
possessing Christ he possesses all things, for he pos- 
sesses Him who created and who disposes of all 
things. He is a joint heir with Him who is heir of 
all things. Well, then, might the apostle say to 
Christians, All things are yours. Well may Christ 
say to his poorest disciple, I know thy poverty, but 
thou art rich. And well may every Christian, con- 
templating his portion, cry, Thanks be unto God for 
his unspeakable gift ! " 

And the Lamb is the Light Thereof. 

" The unfathomable flood of light and glory which 
unceasingly flows from the Father is collected and 
concentrated in the person of his Son, for he is the 
brightness of the Fathers glory and the express 
image of his person. Heaven is therefore illumi- 
nated not only with God's glory, but with the bright- 
est and most dazzling effulgence of divine, uncreated 
light — a light which enlightens and cheers the soul 
as well as the body. Of the nature and degree of 
this light, who but the happy beings that enjoy it can 
form any conception. There are, indeed, several 
passages in Scripture which seem intended to give 
us some idea of it, but they serve little more than to 
convince us that it is altogether inconceivable. 

" For instance, St. John informs us that he saw, in 
vision, a mighty angel come down from heaven, and 
that the earth was lightened with his glory. But if 
the glory of a single angel was sufficient to lighten 
the earth, what must be the glory of the Lord of 
angels ; and how overpowering the light of heaven, 

9 



130 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

where millions of angels continually reside, and God 
and the Lamb display their brightest glories ! 

" Again : when Christ appeared to the same apos- 
tle, his eyes were as a flame of fire, and his feet as 
brass glowing in a furnace, and his countenance as 
the sun shining in his strength ; so that, unable to 
support the sight, St. John fell at his feet as dead. 
But if his glories were thus overpowering when, in 
condescension to the weakness of his servant, he 
drew a vail over them, what must they be in the 
regions above, where they are seen in all their 
brightness, without any interposing vail ? 

" Once more : when Moses came down from the 
mount, after a short interview with God, his face 
shone with a luster so dazzling, that even his brother 
and the elders of Israel were unable to gaze upon it. 
But if a transient view of the glory of God, seen as it 
were through a glass darkly, could impart such a 
luster to a piece of animated clay, what insufferable 
splendor must the constant presence of Jehovah give 
to the diamond walls, the pearly gates, and the golden 
streets of the New Jerusalem ? How must they glow 
and shine, as in a furnace, when the Sun of Right- 
eousness pours upon them his effulgent beams in a 
full tide of glory ! and how must the spiritual bodies 
of their inhabitants, which resemble the glorified 
body of their Redeemer, eclipse all that is called 
brilliant and dazzling on earth ? We are indeed as- 
sured that all the righteous shall shine forth as the 
sun in the kingdom of their Father, and as the 
brightness of the firmament for ever and ever. Say 
then, my friends, does the New Jerusalem need any 
created luminaries to shine in it, or do its inhabitants 



Selections from his Works. 131 

need the light of the sun, when every individual 
among them is himself a sun ? Not only the moon, 
but the sun itself, would be invisible amid these celes- 
tial glories ; or if visible, it would appear only as a 
cloud, or a dark spot on the face of the celestial sky. 
Then, says the prophet, shall the moon be con- 
founded and the sun ashamed, when the Lord of 
Hosts shall reign in Mount Zion, and in Jerusalem, 
and before his ancients gloriously." 

No Night in Heaven. 
" Do the rays of light grow weary in their flight 
from the sun ? or does the thunderbolt need to pause 
and seek refreshment in the midst of its career ? As 
little do the inhabitants of heaven become weary in 
praising and enjoying God. As little do they need 
refreshment or repose ; for their spiritual bodies will 
be far more active and refined than the purest light, 
and their labor itself will be the sweetest rest. Hence 
heaven is styled the rest which remains for God's 
people, and they are represented as serving him un- 
ceasingly in his temple above. They will not, there- 
fore, lose a third part of eternity in sleep. No night 
will be necessary to refresh them ; the pulse of im- 
mortality will beat strong in every vein ; the golden 
harp will never drop from their hands ; their tongues 
will never grow weary of extolling their God and 
Redeemer, but will through eternity pour forth songs 
of praise as unceasing as the displays of those glories 
which excite them." 

The New Jerusalem and its Inhabitants. 
" Behold a city, built with the most perfect regular- 
ity, extending in every direction farther than the eye 



132 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

can reach, surrounded by a wall of jasper, of immeas- 
urable height, and entirely composed of gold, pearls, 
diamonds, and precious stones. See its golden streets 
thronged with inhabitants, whose bodies, composed 
of light seven times refined, are far more dazzlingly 
bright and glorious than all the sparkling gems 
which surround them. See among them the patri- 
archs, the prophets, the apostles, and martyrs, dis- 
tinguished from their fellow-saints by their superior 
brightness. See the gates guarded, and the streets 
filled by thousands of thousands, and ten thousand 
times ten thousand of angels and archangels, thrones 
and dominions, principalities and powers, each one 
of whom seems sufficiently glorious to be himself 
a god. See the golden streets, the diamond walls, 
and pearly gates of this celestial city, reflecting from 
every part streams of light and glory, which flow in 
a full tide from all directions, not from the sun, 
but from a throne, more dazzlingly bright than ten 
thousand suns, raised high in the midst. See the 
innumerable stirring throngs of saints and angels, 
enveloped in the boundless flood of light and glory, 
all falling prostrate before the throne, and with one 
voice praising Him who liveth for ever and ever. 
Hear their united voices, as the voice of many waters, 
and as the voice of mighty thunderings, exclaiming, 
* Alleluia! for the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth. 
Blessing, and glory, and honor, and power, be unto 
Him that sitteth on the throne and to the Lamb for 
ever and ever/ Then raise your eyes to contemplate 
the object of this worship, Him who fills this throne. 
See the Ancient of days, the great I Am, the Being 
of beings, the Being who is, the Being who was, the 



Selections from his Works. 133 

Being who shall be forever. See at his right hand a 
man, the friend, the brother, the Redeemer of man, 
clothed with the brightness of his Father's glory, the 
express image of his person. See him with a coun- 
tenance of mingled majesty, meekness, condescen- 
sion, and love, surveying the countless myriads of his 
people around him, and his eye successively meeting 
their eyes in turn, and pouring into their souls such 
ineffable happiness as is almost too much for mortals 
to bear." 

The Sailor Spoken on his Life Voyage. 

" Ho, there ! creature of God, immortal spirit, voy- 
ager to Eternity ! whither art thou bound ? Heard 
I the answer aright ? Was it, ' I don't know V Not 
know where you are bound ? Heard you ever such 
an answer to this question before ? Should you hear 
such an answer from a spoken vessel, would you not 
conclude its crew to be either drunk or mad ? and 
would you not soon expect to hear of its loss ? Not 
know where you are bound ? And have you, then, 
for so many years, been beating about in the fogs of 
ignorance and uncertainty, with no port in view, the 
sport of storms and currents ; driven hither and 
thither as the winds change, without any hope of 
ever making a harbor, and liable, every moment, to 
strike upon a lee shore ? Not know where you are 
bound? Alas, then, I fear you are bound to the 
Gulf of Perdition, and that you will be driven on the 
rocks of Despair, which are now right ahead of you, 
and which, sooner or later, bring up all who know 
not where they are bound, and who care not what 
course they steer. If I have taken my observation 



134 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

correctly, you are in the Lee Current, which sets 
directly into a gulf where you will find no bottom 
with a thousand fathoms of line. Not know where 
you are bound ? You must then be in distress. You 
have either unshipped your rudder, or you have no 
compass, chart, or quadrant on board ; nor any pilot 
who can carry you into the port of Heaven." 

The Bible a Compass, Chart, and Quadrant. 

"For a compass, chart, and quadrant, God has 
given us the Bible ; and most completely does it an- 
swer the purpose of all three. By this book, as a 
compass, you may shape your course correctly ; for 
it will always traverse freely, and it has no variation. 
By this book, as a quadrant, you may at any time, by 
night or by day, take an observation, and find out 
exactly where you are. And in this book, as on a 
chart, not only the port of Heaven, but your whole 
course, with every rock, shoal, and breaker on which 
you can possibly strike, is most accurately laid down. 
If, then, you make a proper use of this book, mind 
your helm, keep a good lookout, and carefully ob- 
serve your pilot's directions, you will without fail 
make a prosperous voyage, and reach the port of 
Heaven in safety. It may not, however, be amiss 
to give a few hints respecting the first part of your 

course : 

Drunkard 's Rock. 

" If you examine your chart you will find put down, 
not far from the latitude in which you now are, a 
most dangerous rock, called the Rock of Intemper- 
ance, or Drunkard's Rock. This rock, on which 
there is a high beacon, is almost white with the bones 



Selections from his Works. 135 

of poor sailors who have been cast away upon it. 
You must be careful to give this rock a good berth, 
for there is a very strong current setting toward it 
If you once get into that current you will find it very 
difficult getting out again, and will be almost sure 
to strike and go to pieces. You will often find a 
parcel of wreckers round this rock,, who will try to 
persuade you that it is not dangerous, and that there 
is no current. But take care how you believe them. 
Their only object is plunder. 

A Dangerous Whirlpool, 

" Not far from this terrible rock you will find 
marked a whirlpool, almost equally dangerous, called 
the Whirlpool of Bad Company. Indeed this whirl- 
pool often throws vessels upon Drunkard's Rock, as 
it hurries them round. It lies just outside the Gulf 
of Perdition, and every thing which it swallows up 
is thrown into that gulf. It is surrounded by several 
little eddies, which often draw mariners into it before 
they know where they are. Keep a good lookout, 
then, for these eddies, and steer wide of this whirl- 
pool ; for it has swallowed up more sailors than ever 
the sea did. In fact,, it is a complete Hell Gate. 

The Straits of Repentance. 

" Besides this whirlpool and rock, there are several 
shoals laid down in your chart which I cannot now 
stay to describe. Indeed these seas are full of them, 
which makes sailing here extremely dangerous. If 
you would be sure to shun them all and to keep clear 
of the terrible gulf already mentioned, you must im- 
mediately go about, make a signal for a pilot, and 



136 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

steer for the Straits of Repentance, which you will 
see right ahead. These straits, which are very nar- 
row, form the only passage out of the dangerous seas 
you have been navigating into the great Pacific Ocean, 
sometimes called the Safe Sea, or Sea of Salvation, 
on the further shore of which lies your port. It is 
not very pleasant passing these straits ; and therefore 
many navigators have tried hard to find another pas- 
sage. Indeed, some who pretend to be pilots will tell 
you there is another ; but they are wrong ; for the 
great Master Pilot himself has declared that every 
one who does not pass the Straits of Repentance will 
certainly be lost. 

The Bay of Faith. 
"As you pass these straits, the spacious Bay of 
Faith will begin to open, on the right-hand side of 
which you will see a high hill, called Mount Calvary. 
On the top of this hill stands a Light-House, in the 
form of a cross, which, by night, is completely illum- 
ined from top to bottom, and by day, sends up a pillar 
of smoke, like a white cloud. It stands so high, that, 
unless you deviate from the course laid down in your 
chart, you will never lose sight of it in any suc- 
ceeding part of your voyage. At the foot of this 
Light-House you will find the Pilot I have so often 
mentioned waiting for you. You must by all means 
receive him on board ; for without Him, neither your 
own exertions nor all the charts and pilots in the 
world can preserve you from fatal shipwreck. 

The Highlands of Hope. 
"As you enter the Bay of Faith you will see, far 
ahead, like a white cloud in the horizon, the High- 



Selections from his Works. 137 

lands of Hope, which lie hard by your port. These 
lands are so high that when the air is clear you will 
have them continually in sight during the remainder 
of your voyage, and while they are in sight you may 
be sure of always finding good anchoring ground, 
and of safely riding out every storm." 

The Sailor at his Evening Watch. 

" Whenever you are keeping your evening watch 
on deck look up, and see the God of whom you have 
now heard — the God whose name, I fear, some of 
you 'take in vain/ — throned in awful silence, and 
darkness, and majesty, on the sky, crowned with a 
diadem of ten thousand stars, holding the winds and 
thunderbolts in his hand, and setting one foot on the 
sea and the other on the land, while both land and 
sea obey his word, and tremble at his nod." 

The Destruction of the World. 

" Yes, prepare, ye accountable creature, prepare to 
meet your God ; for he has said, Behold I come, I 
come near to judgment ! And hath he said it, and 
shall he not do it? Hath he spoken, and shall he 
not make it good ? Yes, when his appointed hour 
shall arrive, a mighty angel will lift his hand to 
heaven, and swear by Him who liveth for ever and 
ever, that there shall be time no longer. Then our 
world, impetuously driven by the last tempest, will 
strike, and be dashed in pieces on the shores of eter- 
nity. Hark ! what a crash was there ! One groan 
of unutterable anguish, one loud shriek of consterna- 
tion and despair is heard, and all is still. Not a 
fragment of the wreck remains to which the strug- 



1 38 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

gling wretches might cling for support ; but down, 
down, down they sink, whelmed deep beneath the 
billows of almighty wrath. But see ! something ap- 
pears at a distance mounting above the waves, and 
nearing the shore. It is the ark of salvation ! It is 
the life-boat of heaven ! It has weathered the last 
storm ; it enters the harbor triumphantly ; heaven 
resounds with the acclamations of its grateful, hap- 
py crew." 

Sir William y ones' Estimate of the Bible. 

" From the almost innumerable testimonies of this 
nature, which might easily be adduced, we shall se- 
lect only that of Sir William Jones, a judge of the 
supreme court of judicature in Bengal — a man, says 
his learned biographer, who, by the exertion of rare 
intellectual talents, acquired a knowledge of arts, 
sciences, and languages which has seldom been 
equaled, and scarcely, if ever, surpassed. 'I have 
carefully and regularly perused the Scriptures,' says 
this truly great man, 'and am of opinion that this 
volume, independent of its divine origin, contains 
more sublimity, purer morality, more important his- 
tory, and finer strains of eloquence, than can be col- 
lected from all other books, in whatever language 
they may have been written." 

Historic Information of the Bible. 

" If any imagine that Sir William Jones has esti- 
mated too highly the historical information which 
this volume contains, we would only request them to 
peruse it with attention, and particularly to consider 
the assistance which it affords in accounting for many 



Selections from his Works. 139 

otherwise inexplicable phenomena in the natural, 
political, and moral world. A person who has never 
attended to the subject will, on recollection, be sur- 
prised to find for how large a proportion of his 
knowledge he is indebted to this neglected book.* 
It is the only book which satisfactorily accounts, or 
even professes to account, for the introduction of 
natural and moral evil into the world, and for the 
consequent present situation of mankind. To this 
book we are also indebted for all our knowledge of 
the progenitors of our race, and of the early ages of 
the world ; for our acquaintance with the manners 
and customs of those ages ; for the origin and ex- 
planation of many remarkable traditions which have 
extensively prevailed ; and for almost every thing 
which is known of many once flourishing nations, 
especially of the Jews, the most singular and interest- 
ing people, perhaps, that ever existed. It is the Bible 
alone, which, by informing us of the deluge, enables 
us to account satisfactorily for many surprising ap- 
pearances in the internal structure of the earth, as 
well as for the existence of marine exuviae on the 
summits of mountains, and in other places far distant 
from the sea. By the same volume we are assisted 
in accounting for the multiplicity of languages which 
exist in the world ; for the origin and universal prev- 
alence of sacrifices ; and many other facts of an 
equally interesting nature. We shall only add, that 
while the Scriptures throw light on the facts here 
alluded to, the existence of these facts powerfully 



* It will be recollected that we here refer to such information only 
as uninspired men might communicate. 



140 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

tends, on the other hand, to establish the truth and 
authenticity of the Scriptures." 

Antiquity of the Holy Scriptures. 

" In addition to these intrinsic excellences of the 
Bible, which give it, considered merely as a human 
production, powerful claims to the attention of per- 
sons of taste and learning, there are various circum- 
stances, of an adventitious nature, which render it 
peculiarly interesting to a reflecting mind. Among 
these circumstances we may, perhaps not improperly, 
mention its great antiquity. Whatever may be said 
of its inspiration, some of the books which compose 
it are unquestionably the most ancient literary com- 
positions extant, and perhaps the most ancient that 
ever were written ; nor is it very improbable that 
letters were first employed in recording some part of 
them, and that they were written in the language first 
spoken by man. It is also not only the most ancient 
book, but the most ancient monument of human ex- 
ertion, the eldest offspring of human intellect, now 
in existence. Unlike the other works of man, it in- 
herits not his frailty. All the contemporaries of its 
infancy have long since perished and are forgotten. 
Yet this wonderful volume still survives. Like the 
fabled pillars of Seth, which are said to have bid de- 
fiance to the deluge, it has stood for ages unmoved 
in the midst of that flood which sweeps away men, 
with their labors, into oblivion. That these circum- 
stances render it an interesting object of contempla- 
tion, it is needless to remark. Were there now in 
existence a tree which was planted, an edifice which 
was erected, or any monument of human ingenuity 



Selections from his Works. 141 

which was formed at that early period in which some 
parts of the Bible were written, would it not be 
contemplated with the keenest interest, carefully pre- 
served as a precious relic, and considered as some- 
thing little less than sacred ? With what emotions, 
then, will a thoughtful mind often open the Bible ; 
and what a train of interesting reflections is it, in 
this view, calculated to excite ! While we contem- 
plate its antiquity, exceeding that of every object 
around us except the works of God, and view it, in 
anticipation, as continuing to exist unaltered until 
the end of time, must we not feel almost irresistibly 
impelled to venerate it, as proceeding originally from 
Him who is yesterday, to-day, and forever the same, 
and whose works, like his years, fail not ? " 

Unsuccessful Opposition to the Word of God, 

"The interest which this volume excites by its 
antiquity will be greatly increased if we consider the 
violent and persevering opposition it has encountered, 
and the almost innumerable enemies it has resisted 
and overcome. We contemplate, with no ordinary 
degree of interest, a rock which has braved for cent- 
uries the ocean's rage, practically saying, ' Hitherto 
shalt thou come, but no farther ; and here shall thy 
proud waves be stayed/ With still greater interest, 
though of a somewhat different kind, should we con- 
template a fortress which, during thousands of years, 
had been constantly assaulted by successive genera- 
tions of enemies, around whose walls millions had 
perished, and to overthrow which the utmost efforts 
of human force and ingenuity had been excited in 
vain. Such a rock, such a fortress, we contemplate 



142 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

in the Bible. For thousands of years this volume 
has withstood, not only the iron tooth of time, which 
devours men and their works together, but all the 
physical and intellectual strength of man. Pretended 
friends have endeavored to corrupt and betray it ; 
kings and princes have perseveringly sought to ban- 
ish it from the world ; the civil and military powers 
of the greatest empires have been leagued for its de- 
struction ; the fires of persecution have often been 
lighted to consume it and its friends together ; and 
at many seasons death, in some horrid form, has 
been the almost certain consequence of affording it 
an asylum from the fury of its enemies. It has also 
been almost incessantly assailed by weapons of a 
different kind, which, to any other book, would be 
far more dangerous than fire or sword. In these 
assaults wit and ridicule have wasted all their shafts ; 
misguided reason has been compelled, though reluc- 
tantly, to lend her aid, and after repeated defeats 
has again been dragged to the field ; the arsenals of 
learning have been emptied to arm her for the con- 
test ; and in search of means to prosecute it with 
success, recourse has been had, not only to remote 
ages and distant lands, but even to the bowels of the 
earth, and the region of the stars. Yet still the 
object of all these attacks remains uninjured, while 
one army of its assailants after another has melted 
away. Though it has been ridiculed more bitterly, 
misrepresented more grossly, opposed more rancor- 
ously, and burnt more frequently, than any other 
book, and perhaps than all other books united, it is 
so far from sinking under the efforts of its enemies 
that the probability of its surviving until the final 



Selections from his Works. 143 

consummation of all things is now evidently much 
greater than ever. The rain has descended ; the 
floods have come ; the storm has arisen and beat 
upon it ; but it falls not, for it is founded upon a rock. 
Like the burning bush, it has ever been in the flames, 
yet is still unconsumed ; a sufficient proof, were there 
no other, that He who dwelt in the bush preserves 
the Bible." 

Benefits of the Bible to Our Race. 

" Nor have its effects been confined to individuals. 
Nations have participated largely in its benefits. 
Armed with this volume, which is at once sword and 
shield, the first heralds of Christianity went forth 
conquering and to conquer. No less powerful than 
the wonder-working rod of Moses, its touch crumbled 
into dust the temples of paganism, and overthrew, as 
in a moment, the immense fabric of superstition and 
idolatry which had been for ages erecting. To this 
volume alone it is owing that we are not now assem- 
bled in the temple of an idol ; that stocks and stones 
are not our deities ; that cruelty, intemperance, and 
impurity do not constitute our religion ; and that our 
children are not burnt as sacrifices at the shrine of 
Moloch. To this volume we are also indebted for 
the Reformation in the days of Luther ; for the con- 
sequent revival and progress of learning, and for our 
present freedom from papal tyranny. Nor are these 
benefits, great as they are, all which it has been the 
means of conferring on man. Wherever it comes, 
blessings follow in its train. Like the stream which 
diffuses itself, and is apparently lost, among the 
herbage, it betrays its course by its effects. Wher- 



144 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

ever its influence is felt, temperance, industry, and 
contentment prevail ; natural and moral evils are 
banished or mitigated ; and churches, hospitals, and 
asylums for almost every species of wretchedness 
arise to adorn the landscape and cheer the eye of 
benevolence. Such are the temporal benefits which 
even infidelity itself, if it would for once be candid, 
must acknowledge that the Bible has bestowed on 
man. Almost coeval with the sun, its fittest emblem, 
it has, like that luminary, from the commencement 
of its existence, shed an unceasing flood of light on a 
benighted and wretched world. Who, then, can 
doubt that He who formed the sun, gave the Bible 
to be ' a light to our feet, and a lamp to our path ? ' 
Who that contemplates this fountain, still full and 
overflowing, notwithstanding the millions who have 
drank of its waters, can doubt that it has a real 
though invisible connection with that river of life 
which flows forever at the right hand of God." 

Divine Origin of the Bible. 

"The ancient Greeks had one sentence which 
they believed, though without foundation, to have 
descended from heaven ; and to evince their grati- 
tude and veneration for this gift, they caused it to be 
engraved, in letters of gold, on the front of their most 
sacred and magnificent temple. We, more favored, 
have not a sentence only but a volume, which really 
descended from heaven ; and which, whether we con- 
sider its contents or its Author, ought to be indelibly 
engraven on the heart of every child of Adam. Its 
Author is the author of our being ; and its contents 
afford us information of the most satisfactory and 



Selections from his Works. 145 

important kind on subjects of infinite consequence, 
respecting which all other books are either silent, or 
speak only doubtfully and unauthoritatively. It in- 
forms us, with the greatest clearness and precision, 
of every thing necessary either to our present or 
future happiness ; of every thing, in fact, which its 
Author knows, the knowledge of which would be 
really useful to us ; and thus confers those benefits 
which the tempter falsely pretended would result 
from eating the forbidden fruit — making us as gods, 
knowing good and evil." 

The Bible a Mirror. 

"In the fabulous records of pagan antiquity we 
read of a mirror endowed with properties so rare that, 
by looking into it, its possessor could discover any 
object which he wished to see, however remote ; and 
discern, with equal ease, persons and things above, 
below, behind, and before him. Such a mirror, but 
infinitely more valuable than this fictitious glass, do 
we really possess in the Bible. By employing this 
mirror in a proper manner, we may discern objects 
and events, past, present, and to come. Here we 
may contemplate the all-infolding circle of the Eternal 
Mind, and behold a most perfect portrait of Him 
whom no mortal eye hath seen, drawn by his own 
unerring hand. Piercing into the deepest recesses 
of eternity, we may behold him existing independent 
and alone, previous to the first exertion of his crea- 
ting energy. We may see heaven, the habitation of 
his holiness and glory, 'dark with the excessive 
brightness ' of his presence ; and hell, the prison of 

his justice, with no other light than that which the 

10 



146 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

fiery billows of his wrath cast, 'pale and dreadful/ 
serving only to render ' darkness visible/ Here, too, 
we may witness the birth of the world which we in- 
habit ; stand as it were by its cradle, and see it grow 
up from infancy to manhood, under the forming hand 
of its Creator. We may see light at his summons 
starting into existence, and discovering a world of 
waters without a shore. Controlled by his word, the 
waters subside, and islands and continents appear, 
not, as now, clothed with verdure and fertility, but 
sterile and naked as the sands of Arabia. Again he 
speaks, and a landscape appears, uniting the various 
beauties of spring, summer, and autumn, and ex- 
tending further than the eye can reach. Still all is 
silent ; not even the hum of insects is heard, and the 
stillness of death pervades creation ; till, in an in- 
stant, songs burst from every grove, and the startled 
spectator, raising his eyes from the carpet at his feet, 
sees the air, the earth, and the sea filled with life and 
activity in a thousand various forms. Here, too, we 
may contemplate the origin and infancy of our race ; 
trace from its source to its termination that mighty 
river of which we compose a part, and see it sepa- 
rating into two great branches, one of which flows 
back in a circle, and loses itself in the fountain 
whence it arose, while the other rushes on impetu- 
ously in an opposite direction, and precipitates itself 
into a gulf which has no bottom. In this glass we 
may also discover the fountain whence flow those 
torrents of vice and wretchedness which deluge the 
earth ; trace the glorious plan of divine providence 
running, like a stream of lightning, through the dark 
and stormy cloud of sublunary events, and see light 



Selections from his Works. 147 

and order breaking in upon the mighty chaos of 
crimes, revolutions, wars, and convulsions which have 
ever distracted the world, and which, to a person 
unacquainted with the Scriptures, must ever ap- 
pear to produce no beneficial effect, but to succeed 
each other without order, and to happen without de- 
sign. Here, too, we may contemplate ourselves in 
every conceivable situation and point of view ; see 
our hearts laid open, and all their secret recesses dis- 
played ; trace, as on a map, the paths which lead to 
heaven and to hell ; ascertain in which we are walk- 
ing, and learn what we have been, what we are, and 
what we shall be hereafter. Above all, we may here 
see displayed to view that wonderful scheme for the 
redemption of self-destroyed man into which ' angels 
desire to look/ and without which the knowledge 
of God and of ourselves would serve only to plunge 
us in the depths of despair. We may behold Him, 
whom we had previously seen creating the world, 
lying as a helpless infant in a manger, expiring in 
agonies on the cross, and imprisoned in the tomb. 
We may see him rising, ascending to heaven, sitting 
down 'at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty 
on high/ and there swaying the scepter of universal 
empire, and ever living to make intercession for his 
people. Finally, we may see him coming in the clouds 
of heaven, with power and great glory, to judge the 
world. We may see the dead, at his command, rising 
from their graves ; standing in awful silence and 
suspense before his tribunal, and successively ad- 
vancing, to receive from his lips the sentence which 
will confer on each of them an eternal weight of 
glory or consign them forever to the mansions of de- 



148 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

spair. Such are the scenes and objects which the 
Scriptures place before us ; such the information 
which they afford. Who will deny that this informa- 
tion is important, or that it is such as we might 
naturally expect to find in a revelation from God ? " 

Scripture Precepts—Their Importance. 

" Equally important to the present and future hap- 
piness of man are the precepts which the Scriptures 
inculcate. With the greatest clearness and precision, 
and with an authority to which no other book can 
pretend, they teach us our duty to God, to our fellow- 
creatures, and to ourselves. That spiritual kingdom 
whose laws they promulgate consists in ' righteous- 
ness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost;' and 
were these laws universally obeyed, nothing but 
righteousness, peace, and holy joy would be found 
on earth. Should any one deny this, after perusing 
them attentively, it would prove nothing but the 
weakness of his understanding or the depravity of 
his heart. They require us to regard God with filial, 
and our fellow-creatures with fraternal, affection. 
They require rulers to 'be just, ruling in the fear 
of God/ and subjects to 'lead quiet and peaceable 
lives, in all godliness and honesty/ They require 
the husband to 'love the wife even as himself/ and 
the wife 'to reverence her husband/ They require 
parents to educate their children 'in the nurture 
and admonition of the Lord;' and children to 'love, 
honor, and obey' their parents. They require mas- 
ters to treat their servants with kindness, and serv- 
ants to be submissive, diligent, and faithful. They 
require of all, temperance, contentment, and industry; 



Selections from his Works. 149 

and stigmatize, as worse than an infidel, him who 
neglects to provide for the necessities of his family. 
They provide for the speedy termination of animosi- 
ties and dissensions, by requiring us to forgive and 
pray for our enemies whenever we pray for ourselves ; 
and to make reparation to all whom we may have in- 
jured, before we presume to appear with our offerings 
in the presence of God. In a word, they teach us 
that ' denying ungodliness, and worldly lusts, we 
should live soberly, righteously, and godly in this 
present world ; looking for that blessed hope, and 
the glorious appearing of the great God and our 
Saviour, Jesus Christ.' These duties they require 
us to perform with constancy and perseverance, on 
penalty of incurring the everlasting displeasure of our 
Creator, and its dreadful consequences." 

Instructive Examples. 

" In addition to these instructions and precepts 
the Scriptures furnish us with the most instructive 
examples — examples which most plainly and con- 
vincingly teach us both what we must shun and what 
we are to pursue. On every rock where immortal 
souls have been wrecked, at the entrance of every 
path which leads to danger, they show us some self- 
destroyed wretch, standing like a pillar of salt, to 
warn succeeding travelers not to approach it ; while 
at the gate and in the path of life they place many 
divinely instructed and infallible guides, who lead the 
way, beckon us to follow, and point to the happy 
mansions in which it ends. Knowing how power- 
fully we are influenced by the example of those with 
whom we associate, they introduce us to the society 



ISO Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

of the most amiable and excellent of our species ; 
make us perfectly acquainted with their characters 
and pursuits ; admit us into not only their closets, 
but their hearts ; unvail to us all their secret springs 
of action, and show us the hidden source whence 
they derived wisdom and strength to subdue their 
sinful propensities and overcome the world. By 
opening this volume, we may at any time walk in 
the garden of Eden with Adam ; sit in the ark with 
Noah ; share the hospitality, or witness the faith, of 
Abraham ; ascend the mount of God with Moses ; 
unite in the secret devotions of David, or listen to 
the eloquent and impassioned addresses of St. Paul. 
Nay more, we may here converse with Him who 
spake as never man spake ; participate with the spirits 
of the just made perfect in the employment and hap- 
piness of heaven, and enjoy sweet communion with 
the Father of our spirits, through his Son, Jesus 
Christ. Such is the society to which the Scriptures 
introduce us ; — such the examples which they pre- 
sent to our imitation ; requiring us to follow them, 
'who through faith and patience inherit the prom- 
ises ;' to walk in the steps of our divine Redeemer ; 
and to be ' followers of God, as dear children.' ' 

The Bible a Vehicle of Consolation and Hope. 

" Nor does this precious volume contain nothing 
but instructions, precepts, examples, and threaten- 
ings. No, it contains also 'strong consolation;' 
consolation suited to every possible variety and com- 
plication of human wretchedness, and of sufficient 
efficacy to render the soul not only resigned, but 
joyful, in the lowest depths of adversity ;— not only 



Selections from his Works. 151 

tranquil, but triumphant, in the very jaws of death. 
It is the appointed vehicle by which the Spirit of 
God, the promised Comforter, communicates not only 
his instructions, but his consolations, to the soul. It 
is, if I may so express it, the body which he assumed 
in order to converse with men ; and he lives and 
speaks in every line. Hence it is said to ' be quick/ 
or living, ' and powerful/ Hence its words ' are spirit, 
and they are life;' — the living, life-giving words of 
the living God. The consolation which it imparts, 
and the blessings which it offers, are such as nothing 
but omnipotent goodness can bestow. It finds us 
guilty, and freely offers us pardon. It finds us pol- 
luted with innumerable defilements, and offers us 
moral purity. It finds us weak and enslaved, and 
offers us liberty. It finds us wretched, and offers 
happiness. It finds us dead, and offers everlasting 
life. It finds us ' having no hope, and without God 
in the world/ with nothing before us, 'but a certain 
fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation/ 
and places glory, and honor, and immortality full in 
our view ; and while it urges us to pursue them, by 
the exercise of faith in the Redeemer, and 'patient 
continuance in well doing/ it encourages and ani- 
mates us in the pursuit by the most condescending 
offers of assistance, and ' exceedingly great and pre- 
cious promises;' promises signed by the immutable 
God, and sealed with the blood of his eternal Son ; 
promises which, one would think, are sufficient to 
render indolence active and timidity bold. Unfail- 
ing pleasures ; durable riches ; immortal honors ; 
imperishable mansions ; an unfading crown ; an im- 
movable throne ; an everlasting kingdom ; an eternal 



152 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

weight of glory ; perfect, uninterrupted, never-end- 
ing, perpetually-increasing felicity, in the full fruition 
of God, are the rewards, which these promises assure 
to all penitent believers. But in vain do we attempt 
to describe these rewards ; for ' eye hath not seen, 
nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of 
man the things which God hath prepared for them 
that love him/ " 

Consequences Resulting from the Loss of the Bible, 

" In proportion to the importance of its contents 
are the evils which would result from its absence 
or loss. Destroy this volume, as the enemies of 
human happiness vainly endeavored to do, and you 
render us profoundly ignorant of our Creator ; of the 
formation of the world which we inhabit ; of the 
origin and progenitors of our race ; of our present 
duty and future destination ; and consign us, through 
life, to the dominion of fancy, doubt, and conjecture. 
Destroy this volume, and you rob us of the consola- 
tory expectation, excited by its predictions, that the 
stormy cloud which has so long hung over a suffer- 
ing world will at length be scattered, and a brighter 
day succeed ; — you forbid us to hope that the hour is 
approaching when nation shall no more lift up sword 
against nation, and righteousness, peace, and holy 
joy shall universally prevail, and allow us to anticipate 
nothing but a constant succession of wars, revolu- 
tions, crimes, and miseries, terminating only with the 
end of time. Destroy this volume, and you deprive 
us, at a single blow, of religion, with all the animating 
consolations, hopes, and prospects which it affords ; 
and leave us nothing but the liberty of choosing — 



Selections from his Works. 153 

miserable alternative ! — between the cheerless gloom 
of infidelity and the monstrous shadows of paganism. 
Destroy this volume, and you unpeople heaven, bar 
forever its doors against the wretched posterity of 
Adam, restore to the king of terrors his fatal sting, 
bury hope in the same grave which receives our 
bodies, consign all who have died before us to eternal 
sleep or endless misery, and allow us to expect noth- 
ing at death but a similar fate. In a word, destroy 
this volume, and you take from us, at once, every 
thing which prevents existence from becoming of all 
curses the greatest. You blot out the sun, dry up 
the ocean, take away the atmosphere of the moral 
world, and degrade man to a situation from which 
he may look up with envy to 'the brutes that 
perish/ " 

God's Boundless Empire. 

" Think of the innumerable armies of heaven ; the 
perhaps scarcely less numerous hosts of hell ; the 
multitudes of the human race, who have existed, who 
now exist, and will hereafter exist on earth before the 
end of time. Then raise your eyes to the numerous 
suns and worlds around us. Borrow the telescope 
of the astronomer, and penetrating far into unfathom- 
able recesses of the etherial regions, see new suns, 
new worlds, still rising into view. Consider that 
all we can discover is perhaps but a speck, a single 
sand on the shore, in comparison with what remains 
undiscovered ; that all these innumerable worlds are 
probably inhabited by immortal beings, and that 
God's plan of government for this boundless empire 
must embrace eternity ; — consider these things, and 
then say whether God's purposes, thoughts, and 



154 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

ways must not necessarily be high above ours as 
the heavens are above the earth, or as his sphere of 
action exceeds ours. Must not the thoughts and 
ways of a powerful earthly monarch be far above 
those of one of his subjects who is employed in 
manufacturing a pin, or cultivating a few acres of 
ground ? Can such a subject be competent to judge 
of his sovereign's designs, or even to comprehend 
them ? How far, then, must the thoughts and ways 
of the eternal Monarch of heaven, the King of kings 
and Lord of lords, exceed ours ; and how little able 
are we to judge of them, further than the revelation 
which he has been pleased to give enables us." 

The Infinite Contrast. 

" God is perfectly benevolent and holy, but we are 
entirely selfish and sinful. We love sin, that abomi- 
nable thing which his soul hates. We care for noth- 
ing but our own private interest, while his concern is 
for the interest of the universe. Hence his thoughts, 
his affections, his maxims and pursuits, must be en- 
tirely different from ours. Do not the thoughts and 
ways of angels differ from those of devils ? Do not 
even the thoughts and ways of good men differ widely 
from those of the wicked ? How infinitely, then, must 
a perfectly holy God differ from us, polluted worms, 
who are dead in trespasses and sins ! If man at his 
best estate, and even angels themselves, are incom- 
petent to comprehend God's thoughts and ways, be- 
cause he is infinitely superior to them in wisdom, 
and knowledge, and power, how unable must we be, 
since sin has blinded our understanding, hardened 
our hearts, defiled the whole man, debased all our 



Selections from his Works. 155 

faculties, and exposed us to innumerable temptations, 
prejudices, and mistakes, which lead us to hate and 
shun the pure light of divine truth, to delude and 
deceive ourselves, and to form erroneous opinions 
respecting almost every thing around us ; to call evil 
good, and good evil ; to put sweet for bitter, and 
bitter for sweet ; shadows for realities, and realities 
for shadows ; darkness for light, and light for dark- 
ness. The pleasures, ways, and pursuits of an oyster, 
inclosed in its shell, at the bottom of the sea, do not 
by any means differ so widely from those of the eagle 
that soars to the clouds and basks in the beams of 
the sun, as do the thoughts and ways of sinners from 
those of the infinitely benevolent and holy Monarch 
of the universe." 

The Plan of Redemption above Human Conception. 

" In devising a way of salvation, and in providing 
a Saviour, God's thoughts and ways are very' differ- 
ent from ours, and far, very far, above them. We 
should have thought, that if God intended to save 
sinners, he would bring them to repentance and save 
them at once ; or, at least, after suffering them to 
endure for a season the bitter consequences of their 
own folly and disobedience. We never should have 
thought of providing for them a Redeemer ; still less 
should we have thought of proposing that God's only 
Son, the Creator and Preserver of all things, should 
undertake this office ; and least of all should we have 
expected that he would, for this purpose, think it 
necessary to become man. If we had been informed 
that this was necessary, and it had been left for us to 
fix the time and manner of his appearing, we should 



156 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

have concluded that he ought to come soon after the 
fall ; to be born of illustrious parents ; to make his 
appearance on earth in all the splendor, pomp, and 
glory imaginable ; to overcome all opposition by a 
display of irresistible power ; to ride through the 
world in triumph, conquering and to conquer. Such 
were the expectations of the Jews ; and such, most 
probably, would have been ours. But never should 
we have thought of his being born of a virgin in ab- 
ject circumstances ; born in a stable, cradled in a 
manger, living for many years as a humble artificer ; 
wandering, despised, and rejected of men, without a 
place to lay his head, and finally arraigned, tried, 
condemned, and crucified, as a vile malefactor, that 
he might thus expiate our sins, and by his death give 
life to the world. Had we been forewarned of these 
things we should have considered them as too foolish, 
incredible, and absurd to obtain the smallest credit ; 
and instead of thinking them cunningly devised, 
should have thought them very clumsily-contrived 
fables, unworthy of the least notice or regard. And 
thus in fact they have appeared, and do still appear, 
to the wise men of this world ; ' For/ says the 
apostle, 'the cross of Christ is foolishness to them 
that perish/ " 

The Folly of Judging of God by Our Limited Knowl- 
edge of Him. 

"An ancient writer tells us of a man who, having 
a house for sale, carried a brick to market to exhibit 
as a specimen. You may perhaps smile at his folly 
in supposing that any purchaser would or could 
judge of a whole house, which he never saw, by so 



Selections from his Works. 157 

small a part of it. But are we not guilty of much 
greater folly in attempting to form an opinion of 
God's conduct from that little part of it which we 
are able to discover? In order to form a correct 
opinion of it we ought to have a correct view of the 
whole ; we ought to see the whole extent and dura- 
tion of God's kingdom ; to be equal to him in wis- 
dom, knowledge, power, and goodness ; in one word, 
we ought to be God ourselves." 

The Reasonableness of Faith. 

" The very essence of faith consists in a humble, 
docile, childlike temper, which disposes us to em- 
brace, without objecting or disputing, every thing 
which God reveals ; and to believe that all his words 
and dispensations are, even though we cannot see 
how, perfectly right. Christians are often ridiculed 
for exercising this implicit faith in God, and believ- 
ing what they cannot fully comprehend. But we 
appeal to every one present whether in so doing 
they do not act reasonably. If God's ways and 
thoughts are high above ours, ought we not implicitly 
to believe all his declarations; to believe that all he 
says and does is perfectly right ? Is it not reason- 
able for children thus to believe their parents ? for a 
sick man to trust in a skillful physician ? for a pas- 
senger unacquainted with navigation to trust to the 
master of the vessel ? for a blind man to follow his 
guide ? If so, then it is much more reasonable for 
such ignorant, short-sighted, fallible creatures as we 
are to submit and trust implicitly to an infinitely wise, 
good, and infallible Being ; and when any of his words 
or works appear wrong, to ascribe it to our own 



158 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

ignorance, blindness, or prejudice, rather than to sup- 
pose that there is any thing wrong in him." 

The World Created for Christ. 

"This world was created for Christ. It was cre- 
ated, in the first place, for the display of his natural 
perfections ; for the display of creative wisdom and 
power to angelic minds. Accordingly we are told, 
that when he laid the foundation of the earth these 
sons of God sung his praises together and shouted 
for joy. It was created, in the second place, to serve 
as a stage on which he might display to all intelligent 
creatures his moral perfections, and especially on 
which he might display the glories of an incarnate 
God, and act the wonders of the great scheme of 
redemption. It was also created to be a province of 
his dominions, the place where his mediatorial king- 
dom should be set up, and where his chosen people 
should be prepared by his grace for admission into 
his kingdom above. When it shall have served for 
all these purposes, when Christ shall have done with 
it, the end of its creation will of course be accom- 
plished, and then the earth will of course be destroyed. 
Then the visible heavens, being on fire, will be dis- 
solved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, 
and earth, with the works thereof, shall be burned 
up, and its destruction, no less than its creation, will 
display the perfection of its Creator." 

The Human Race Created for Christ. 

"The human race was created that Christ might 
display his infinite condescension in assuming their 
nature. In order to display this condescension in 



Selections from his Works. 159 

the most clear and striking manner, it was neces- 
sary that he should assume the nature of the lowest 
class of rational beings — a nature subject to many 
evils and infirmities — a nature in which he might be- 
come visible, and act and speak in a visible manner. 
Had he taken the nature of angels into union with 
his own, it would have been a less wonderful act of 
condescension, nor could the act have been made 
equally apparent ; for angels are spiritual beings, and 
the divine nature of Christ is spiritual, and the union 
of two beings purely spiritual could not be made to 
appear so evidently as the union of a spiritual being 
with our nature, which is partly material. We can 
conceive of God manifest in the flesh, much more 
clearly than of God manifest in an angel. We may 
further observe, that a part of the designed display 
of Christ's condescension consisted in his becoming 
subject to hunger, thirst, weariness, and pain, and in 
his dying in the nature which he assumed. He was 
to appear in the likeness of frail, sinful flesh. But 
angels are subject to none of these infirmities. They 
can neither hunger, nor thirst, nor be weary, nor die. 
Christ could not therefore appear in the nature of a 
sinful angel as he could in the likeness of sinful flesh. 
Hence, in order to the full display of his condescen- 
sion, it was necessary that rational beings should be 
created inferior to angels, or in other words, such 
beings as those who compose the human race. 

"The human race was created that Christ might 
display all his perfections which men or angels have 
ever seen. The glory of God appears most re- 
splendent and full-orbed in the face of Jesus Christ. 
Power, wisdom, goodness, justice, truth, love, mercy, 



160 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

grace, and faithfulness here shine with united luster 
in full brilliancy, nor can we determine which appears 
most glorious or lovely. In God's other works, some 
drops of that overflowing fountain, some rays from 
the infinite sun, are seen ; but in the work of re- 
demption, in the glorious Gospel of the blessed God, 
the whole Deity, the whole fullness of the Godhead, 
flows out in one boundless tide ; a tide which will 
forever fill to the brim every holy mind, and in which 
all holy beings will bathe with rapturous delight 
through eternity." 

A Proof of Christ's Divinity. 

"The assertion that all things were created by 
Christ, is sufficient to prove his divinity ; for he who 
built all things must be God. But when, in addition 
to this, we are assured that all things were created 
for him, we have a proof of his divinity which is, if 
possible, still more convincing ; for, supposing for a 
moment that God could and would employ a creature 
to perform the work of creation, can we suppose that 
he would permit that creature to create all things for 
himself, for his own pleasure and glory ? Surely not. 
God has said, I am Jehovah, that is my name, and 
my glory I will not give to another. The glory of 
creating all things, of upholding all things, of gov- 
erning all things, of redeeming and judging the 
world, is all given to Christ. Nay more, all things 
were created on purpose that the glory resulting from 
all might be given* to Christ. If, then, Christ be not 
Jehovah, Jehovah's glory is all given to another, and 
nothing remains to himself. But view Christ as God 
manifest in the flesh, and the difficulty vanishes. 



Selections from his Works. 161 

Then in honoring the Son, we honor the Father. 
Then we shall understand why all the inhabitants of 
heaven are represented as ascribing joint glories to 
Him that sitteth on the throne, and to the Lamb. 
By him that sitteth on the throne, is meant the di- 
vine, and by the Lamb slain, the human nature of 
Christ. Both are inseparably united, and Christ's 
human nature is the temple in which he will be wor- 
shiped by saints and angels through eternity.' , 

The Cross the Central Object of Creation. 

" From this subject we may learn, that, if we would 
view every object in its true light, and rightly esti- 
mate its nature and design, we must consider it with 
reference to Christ and his cross. To the cross of 
Christ all eternity has looked forward ; to the cross 
of Christ all eternity will look back. The cross of 
Christ was, if I may so express it, the first object 
which existed in the divine mind ; and with reference 
to this great object all other objects were created. 
With reference to the same object they are still pre- 
served. With reference to the same object every 
event that takes place in heaven, earth, and hell is 
directed and overruled. Surely, then, this object 
ought to engage our undivided attention. We ought 
to regard this world merely as a stage on which the 
cross of Christ was to be erected, and the great 
drama of the crucifixion acted. We ought to regard 
the celestial luminaries merely as lamps, by the light 
of which this stupendous spectacle may be beheld. 
We ought to view angels, men, and devils as subordi- 
nate actors on the stage, and all the .commotions and 

revolutions of the world as subservient to this one 

11 



1 62 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

grand design. Separate any part of this creation, or 
any event that has ever taken place, from its relation 
to Christ, and it dwindles into insignificancy. No 
sufficient reason can be assigned for its existence, 
and it appears to have been formed in vain. But 
when viewed as connected with him, every thing be- 
comes important ; every thing then appears to be a 
part of one grand, systematic, harmonious whole ; a 
whole worthy of Him that formed it. It was such a 
view of things which led the apostle to exclaim, ' God 
forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our 
Lord Jesus Christ/ " 

Introduction of Sin into the World. 

" The introduction of sin is thus described by the 
inspired historian : ' And when the woman saw that 
the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant 
to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one 
wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and 
gave also unto her husband with her ; and he did eat.' 

" In this account of the conduct of the first sinner 
we see, in the first place, selfishness, or a preference 
of herself to God ; for had she loved him supremely, 
she would have chosen to obey his commands rather 
than to gratify herself. This must ever be the first 
sin ; for so long as any creature prefers God to him- 
self, he will choose to please God rather than to 
gratify himself; of course, he will avoid every sin, 
and no temptation will induce him to offend his 
Maker, while he loves him with all his heart. But 
so soon as any creature begins to prefer himself to 
God, he will choose to gratify himself rather than 
please his Maker ; and will of course commit any 



Selections from his Works. 163 

sin which promises him self-gratification or self- 
aggrandizement. 

"The second thing to be noticed in the conduct 
of the first sinner is pride. She saw that it was a 
tree to be desired to make one wise ; that is, she 
fancied, as the tempter had asserted, that it would 
cause her to become as a god, knowing good and 
evil. Now this wish was the effect of pride, and it 
was accompanied by the inseparable attendant of 
pride, discontent — discontent with the situation in 
which God had placed her. This sin is the natural 
consequence of selfishness ; for as soon as we begin 
to prefer ourselves to God, we shall wish to put our- 
selves in the place of God, and to rise above the 
sphere of action which he has assigned us, and to 
grasp at those things which he has not thought 
proper to bestow. 

" The third thing in her conduct, the third step in 
the way of sin, was sensuality \ or a disposition to be 
governed and guided by her senses, and to seek their 
gratification in an unlawful manner. She saw that 
the fruit of the tree was good for food, and pleasant 
to the eyes. Here was something to gratify two of 
the senses, those of tasting and seeing; and this 
gratification, though forbidden, she was determined 
to enjoy. The influence of sin, which had hitherto 
existed only in the passions of the mind, began to 
extend itself to the appetites of the body, and by this 
influence they were inflamed to such a degree that 
they prompted her to disregard the dictates of reason 
and conscience, and the commands of God. 

"The next step in the fatal way was unbelief; a 
distrust of God's word, and a consequent belief of the 



164 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

tempters suggestions. God had said, 'In the day 
thou eatest, thou shalt surely die.' This threatening 
she now disbelieved. The tempter said, ' God doth 
know that ye shall not surely die ; but in the day 
that ye eat of it your eyes shall be opened, and ye 
shall be as gods, knowing good and evil/ This false- 
hood she did believe. This disbelief of God's word, 
and belief of Satan's suggestions, was the natural 
consequence of sins already mentioned ; for when 
the passions and appetites are inflamed by the influ- 
ence of sin, they immediately blind the understand- 
ing in such a manner that it can no longer discover 
the evidence which attends divine truth, nor the 
force of those arguments and motives which should 
induce us to obey it. Every thing which is urged 
against a compliance with our sinful inclinations then 
appears weak and groundless, while those sophistical 
reasonings which favor their gratification seem pow- 
erful and conclusive. In this state, therefore, the 
mind is completely prepared to disbelieve the God 
of truth, whose word opposes and forbids its sinful 
inclinations, and to believe the father of lies, who 
urges us to gratify them. And this, in fact, is the 
source of all the unbelief which prevails in the world ; 
for the evidence attending God's word is so con- 
vincing that men never would, never could, disbe- 
lieve, did they not first wish to disbelieve it. 

" But to proceed : God's threatenings being thus 
disbelieved, and the lies of the tempter embraced as 
truth, every barrier which opposed Eve's progress 
was removed, and the sinful propensities that have 
been mentioned broke out in open, actual disobe- 
dience. She took of the fruit of the tree and did eat. 



Selections from his Works. 165 

Thus she made a full entrance into that way, which 
wicked men have ever since trodden. The first step 
was selfishness ; the second, pride ; the third, sensu- 
ality; the fourth, unbelief; and the last, actual, open, 
willful disobedience." 

The Broad and Narrow Way, 

" All along the path He has set up way-marks with 
the inscription, This road conducts to hell; while a 
hand, pointing to a narrow path, which opens to the 
right, has written over it, This path leads to heaven. 
Lest you should be so occupied by the cares and 
business of the world as to pass these way-marks 
without noticing them, he has placed at each of them 
a watchman to warn thoughtless travelers, and to 
call their attention to these inscriptions ; and lest 
any should rush on without stopping to hear their 
warnings, he has placed the Sabbath, like a gate, 
across their path to compel them to stop till it be 
opened, and to hear the warning voice. To one of 
these gates, my impenitent hearers, you have now 
come. It has compelled you to pause, a few moments, 
in your sinful career ; and to pass away the time till 
the Sabbath is gone you have come to the house of 
prayer. Here is a watchman appointed by your 
Creator. I stand to call your attention to the in- 
scriptions which he has recorded ; to the marks 
which he has drawn of the various paths in which 
men walk. Sinner, stop ! I have a message to thee 
from God. See it written with his own finger, This 
broad road leads to destruction ! Look at the map 
which he has drawn. See here a way opening out 
of the gates of paradise, leading on, broad and 



1 66 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

crooked, through the mazes of the world, and termi- 
nating at the iron gate of the bottomless abyss. 
See written on its margin, Destruction and misery are 
in this path; it leads down to the chambers of eternal 
death. This is the path of the openly irreligious. 
See close by its side another path, opened by the 
first murderer. See written on it, There is a way 
which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof is 
death. This is the path of the self-righteous, the 
formalist, the hypocrite, and, like the other, leads to 
death. Sinners, you have seen this path ; it is yours ; 
it is the path in which you are now walking. You 
have also seen its end. Let it be yours then no 
longer. This day, this hour, forsake it, and enter 
that path which opens to the right hand. Here you 
may see it ; and the strait gate which leads into it 
opens to every one who knocks. Close by its side 
stands a cross ; rays of light darting from it illumi- 
nate and mark out the path. Just within the gate 
stands an invisible guide with extended hand, offer- 
ing to lead, to assist, to support you ; while at the 
termination are the wide-open gates of heaven, from 
which issue a flood of glory, which you will discover 
more and more clearly as you approach them. O 
then, enter this path ! Strive, strive to enter in at 
the strait gate ! " 

How to See our Sins as God Sees Them. 

"'Thou hast set our iniquities before thee, our 
secret sins in the light of thy countenance.' That 
is, our iniquities or open transgressions, and our 
secret sins, the sins of our hearts, are placed, as it 
were, full before God's face, immediately under his 



Selections from his Works. 167 

eye ; and he sees them in the pure, clear, all-disclos- 
ing light of his own holiness and glory. Now if we 
would see our sins as they appear to him — that is, as 
they really are — if we would see their number, black- 
ness, and criminality, and the malignity and desert 
of every sin, we must place ourselves and our sins in 
the center of that circle which is irradiated by the 
light of his countenance ; where all his infinite 
perfections are clearly displayed ; where his concen- 
trated glories blaze, and burn, and dazzle with insuf- 
ferable brightness. And in order to this, we must, 
in thought, leave our dark and sinful world, where 
God is unseen and almost forgotten, and where, con- 
sequently, the evil of sinning against him cannot be 
fully perceived, and mount up to heaven, the peculiar 
habitation of his holiness and glory, where he does 
not, as here, conceal himself behind the vail of his 
works and of second causes, but shines forth the un- 
vailed God, and is seen as he is. 

" Let us then, my hearers, attempt this adventur- 
ous flight. Let us follow the path by which our 
blessed Saviour ascended to heaven, and soar upward 
to the great capital of the universe, to the palace and 
the throne of its greater King. As we rise, the earth 
fades from our view ; now we leave worlds, and suns, 
and systems behind us. Now we reach the utmost 
limits of creation ; now the last star disappears, and 
no ray of created light is seen. But a new light now 
begins to dawn and brighten upon us. It is the light 
of heaven, which pours in a flood of glory from its 
wide-open gates, spreading continual meridian day 
far and wide through the regions of etherial space. 
Passing swiftly onward through this flood of day, the 



1 68 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

songs of heaven begin to burst upon your ears, and 
voices of celestial sweetness, yet loud as the sound 
of many waters and of mighty thunderings, are heard, 
exclaiming, ' Alleluia ! for the Lord God omnipotent 
reigneth. Blessing, and glory, and honor, and power, 
be unto Him that sitteth on the throne, and to the 
Lamb, forever.' A moment more, and you have 
passed the gates ; you are in the midst of the city, 
you are in the immediate presence of God, and all his 
glories are blazing around you like a consuming fire ! 
Flesh and blood cannot support it ; your bodies dis- 
solve into their original dust, but your immortal 
souls remain, and stand naked spirits before the great 
Father of Spirits. Nor in losing their tenements of 
clay have they lost the powers of perception. No ; 
they are now all eye, all ear ; nor c£n you close the 
eyelids of the soul, to shut out for a moment the 
dazzling, overpowering splendors which surround you, 
and which appear like light condensed, like glory 
which may be felt. You see, indeed, no form or 
shape ; and yet your whole souls perceive, with in- 
tuitive clearness and certainty, the immediate, awe- 
inspiring presence of Jehovah. You see no counte- 
nance ; and yet you feel as if a countenance of awful 
majesty, in which all the perfections of divinity shone 
forth, were beaming upon you wherever you turn. 
You see no eye ; and yet a piercing, heart-searching 
eye, an eye of omniscient purity, every glance of 
which goes through your souls like a flash of light- 
ning, seems to look upon you from every point of 
surrounding space. You feel as if enveloped in an 
atmosphere, or plunged in an ocean, of existence, in- 
telligence, perfection, and glory ; an ocean, of which 



Selections from his Works. 169 

your laboring minds can take in only a drop ; an 
ocean, the depth of which you cannot fathom, and 
the breadth of which you can never fully explore. 
But while you feel utterly unable to comprehend this 
infinite Being, your views of him, so far as they ex- 
tend, are perfectly clear and distinct. You have the 
most vivid perceptions, the most deeply graven im- 
pressions, of an infinite, eternal, spotless mind, in 
which the images of all things, past, present, and to 
come, are most harmoniously seen, arranged in the 
most perfect order, and defined with the nicest ac- 
curacy ; — of a mind, which wills with infinite ease, but 
whose volitions are attended by a power omnipotent 
and irresistible, and which sows worlds, suns, and 
systems through the fields of space with far more 
facility than the husbandman scatters his seed upon 
the earth ; — of a mind, whence have flowed all the 
streams which ever watered any part of the universe 
with life, intelligence, holiness, or happiness, and 
which is still full, overflowing, and inexhaustible. 
You perceive also, with equal clearness and certainty, 
that this infinite, eternal, omnipotent, omniscient, all- 
wise, all-creating mind is perfectly and essentially 
holy, a pure flame of holiness, and that, as such, he 
regards sin with unutterable, irreconcilable detesta- 
tion and abhorrence. With a voice which reverber- 
ates through the wide expanse of his dominions you 
hear him saying, as the Sovereign and Legislator of 
the universe, Be ye holy ; for I, the Lord your God, 
am holy. And you see his throne surrounded, you 
see heaven filled, by those only who perfectly obey 
this command. You see thousands of thousands, 
and ten thousand times ten thousand of angels and 



170 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

archangels, pure, exalted, glorious intelligences, who 
reflect his perfect image, burn like flames of fire 
with zeal for his glory, and seem to be so many 
concentrations of wisdom, knowledge, holiness, and 
love ; a fit retinue for the thrice holy Lord of hosts, 
whose holiness and all-filling glory they unceasingly 
proclaim. 

" And now, my hearers, if you are willing to see 
your sins in their true colors — if you would rightly 
estimate their number, magnitude, and criminality — 
bring them into the hallowed place where nothing is 
seen but the whiteness of unsullied purity, and the 
splendors of uncreated glory; where the sun itself 
would appear only as a dark spot ; and there, in the 
midst of this circle of seraphic intelligences, with the 
infinite God pouring all the light of his countenance 
round you, review your lives, contemplate your of- 
fenses, and see how they appear. Recollect that the 
God in whose presence you are is the Being who 
forbids sin, the Being of whose eternal law sin is 
the transgression, and against whom every sin is 
committed. ,, 

The Righteousness of Christ — How Obtained. 

" How may an interest in the righteousness of 
Christ be obtained ? I answer, It cannot be pur- 
chased, for it is infinitely above all price, nor will he 
sell his favors. It cannot be merited ; for the best 
merit nothing but destruction. It must come as a 
free gift. But to whom will it be given ? I answer, 
It is freely and unconditionally offered to all who will 
accept it by faith. None, however, will ever accept 
it but those who see that they have no righteousness 



Selections from his Works. 171 

of their own to plead. Hence our Saviour informs 
us that publicans and harlots, the very refuse of soci- 
ety, will sooner enter the kingdom of heaven than 
those who, like the Pharisees, trust in themselves 
that they are righteous. Hence, also, we find that 
the promises of the Gospel are ever made to the poor 
in spirit, to the self-condemned sinner, to the mourn- 
ers for sin, and to the penitent and contrite heart. 
Such characters see and feel that they have nothing 
of their own to plead ; nothing which they dare place 
in the balance. They see, as did the apostle, that in 
them there dwells no good thing ; they see that they 
are wholly unworthy of God's favor, and deserve 
nothing but death at his hands ; the}'' see that if they 
ever are saved, they must be saved by free, sovereign 
grace. Hence they are willing to throw themselves 
at Christ's feet, and resign themselves entirely to his 
disposal. They are willing to receive him by faith, 
as he is freely offered in the Gospel, and to depend 
on his righteousness and intercession alone for salva- 
tion. But never will the self-righteous sinner do 
this ; never will he submit to be saved in this hum- 
bling way. He may, indeed, be willing that Christ 
should supply the deficiencies of his own imaginary 
righteousness, and atone for the few trifling sins 
which he has committed ; but he is resolved to have 
at least part of the glory of his salvation ; he will not 
depend on Christ alone, and therefore in reality does 
not depend upon him at all, nor will he receive any 
benefit from him ; for our Saviour will have no part- 
ners in this work. He will have all the glory, or we 
never shall join in the song of the redeemed." 



172 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

Thoughts are Words in the Ear of God. 

" We must leave every one to reflect, as he pleases, 
on the atheistical thoughts, the impious and profane 
thoughts, the impure, covetous, vain, foolish, and ab- 
surd thoughts, which have passed through his mind 
and been entertained there. And while you reflect 
on this, remember that thoughts are the language of 
disembodied spirits ; that thoughts are words, in the 
ear of God ; and that our guilt, in his sight, is no 
less great than if we had actually given utterance 
to every thought which has lodged in our minds. 
Agreeably, we find our Saviour answering the thottghts 
of those around him, just as he would if they had ex- 
pressed them in words ; and in many passages, God 
charges sinners with saying what, it appears, they 
only thought. In the ear of Jehovah, then, our 
thoughts have a tongue ; and what he hears them 
say we may learn from the inspired declaration. 
Every imagination of the thoughts of man's heart is 
evil continually." 

Sin an Infinite Evil. 

"Every sin is an infinite evil, because it tends to 
produce infinite mischief. Let us trace this tendency. 
Suppose all the universe to be holy and happy. A 
thought or feeling tending to produce sin rises in the 
breast of some one creature. This thought or feeling 
is indulged. It gains strength by indulgence ; grad- 
ually it extends its influence over the faculties of the 
mind, enslaves the whole man, and prompts him to 
disobey God. Now did it proceed no further, it would 
still be an infinite evil, for it has depraved and ruined 



Selections from his Works. 173 

an immortal being — a being who, but for sin, would 
have been eternally happy ; but who must, in conse- 
quence of sin, be forever miserable. But it will not 
stop there. The being thus ruined by sin will be- 
come a tempter, and seduce his fellow-beings ; and 
they, in turn, will tempt others ; and, unless God pre- 
vent, the infection will spread through the created 
universe, transforming holy beings into devils, and 
all worlds into hell ! Such, my hearers, is the tend- 
ency of sin. Do any deny it ? We appeal to facts. 
The whole universe was once holy and happy. A 
thought or feeling tending to produce sin rose in the 
breast of Satan. He indulged it, and it ruined him. 
It transformed him from an archangel into a devil. 
He tempted other angels, and they became devils. 
He tempted our first parents ; they complied, sinned, 
and became the parents of a sinful race. Thus all 
the sin and all the misery in the universe, all on 
earth and all in hell, may be traced back to one sin- 
ful thought or feeling entertained, at first, in a single 
breast ; and this sin and misery would be far greater 
than they are, were it not for the restraining power 
and grace of God. Such, then, is the tendency of sin, 
of every sin'; and such effects it would produce, did 
not God prevent. A sinful thought, or feeling, is 
like a spark of fire. It seems but a little thing, and 
is easily extinguished ; but it has a tendency to con- 
sume and destroy ; and let it have room and oppor- 
tunity to exert itself, let it be fed by combustible 
materials, and fanned by the winds, and it would de- 
stroy every thing destructible in the universe. Sim- 
ilar is the tendency of sin ; and who, then, will say 
that it is not an infinite evil ? " 



174 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

Everlasting Punishment — Argument. 

" If our sins are infinite in number and criminality, 
then, of course, they deserve an infinite or everlasting 
punishment ; such a punishment as God threatens 
in his word. There is scarcely any truth which men 
are more disposed to deny than this. They contend 
that it cannot be just for God to punish sins, com- 
mitted during the short period of our residence on 
earth, with everlasting misery. But let us examine 
this objection. Do you not all acknowledge that a 
murderer may justly be put to death ? Yet he might 
have been employed but a moment in committing 
that murder. The fact is, in other cases we never 
think of inquiring how much time was spent in the 
commission of any crime. We consider only the na- 
ture and magnitude of the crime, and its effects upon 
society. If the crime is great, and its effects highly 
pernicious, we conclude at once that it deserves a 
severe punishment. Now sin is an infinite evil ; the 
effects which it tends to produce are infinitely mis- 
chievous. Of course, it deserves an infinite punish- 
ment. And permit me to add, that complaints of 
the severity of this punishment come with a very ill 
grace from impenitent sinners ; for they will persist 
in sin notwithstanding this punishment. It seems, 
then, that instead of being too severe, it is not 
sufficiently severe to deter them from sin. If men 
will now violate God's laws, what would they do 
had he annexed to their violation only a temporary 
punishment ? 

" If sin deserves an infinite punishment, then it is 
perfectly right that God should inflict such a punish- 



Selections from his Works. 175 

merit upon sinners. It is no impeachment of his 
character, no reflection upon his goodness, to say 
that he will inflict it. This evidently follows as a 
necessary consequence from what has been said, for 
justice consists in treating every one as he deserves 
to be treated ; and if sinners deserve an endless 
punishment, then it is perfectly just and right for 
God to inflict such a punishment upon them. 

" If it is just that God should inflict such a punish- 
ment upon impenitent sinners then he must inflict 
it ; he is bound by the strongest obligations to inflict 
it, for he must do what is just and right. And if it 
is just and right thus to punish impenitent sinners, 
then it cannot be just and right not to do it. To 
spare them would not be treating them as they de- 
serve, and justice consists in treating them according 
to their deserts. In a word, it is as much an act of 
injustice to spare the guilty as it would be to con- 
demn the innocent. This God himself teaches us in 
his word. He that justifieth the wicked, and he that 
condemneth the just, even they both are an abomina- 
tion to the Lord. And will the just God do that 
which he declares to be an abomination in his sight ? 
The Judge of all the earth must do right." 

The Folly and Absurdity of Pride. 

" How foolish, how absurd, how ruinous, how 
blindly destructive of its own object, does pride ap- 
pear ! By attempting to soar, it only plunges, itself 
in the mire ; and, while endeavoring to erect for itself 
a throne, it undermines the ground on which it stands 
and digs its own grave. It plunged Satan from 
heaven into hell ; it banished our first parents from 



176 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

paradise ; and it will, in a similar manner, ruin all 
who indulge it. It keeps us in ignorance of God, 
shuts us out from his favor, prevents us from resem- 
bling him, deprives us, in this world, of all the honor 
and happiness which communion with him would 
confer ; and in the next, unless previously hated, re- 
pented of, and renounced, will bar forever against us 
the door of heaven, and close upon us the gates of 
hell. O, then, my friends, beware, above all things, 
beware of pride ! Beware, lest you indulge it imper- 
ceptibly ; for it is, perhaps, of all sins, the most 
secret, subtle, and insinuating. That you may de- 
tect it, remember that he only who seeks after God 
in his appointed way, is humble ; and that all who 
neglect thus to seek him are most certainly proud 
in heart, and, consequently, an abomination unto 
the Lord." 

Why the Remembrance of God is Painful. 

" If we are condemned it will be painful to remem- 
ber that God is our Creator and Benefactor, for the 
remembrance will be attended with a consciousness 
of base ingratitude. It will be painful to think of 
him as Lawgiver, for such thoughts will remind us 
that we have broken his law. It will be painful to 
think of his holiness ; for if he is holy, he must hate 
our sins, and be angry with us as sinners : of his 
justice and truth ; for these perfections make it 
necessary that he should fulfill his threatenings and 
punish us for our sins. It will be painful to think of 
his omniscience ; for this perfection makes him ac- 
quainted with our most secret offenses, and renders 
it impossible to conceal them from his view : of his 



Selections from his Works. 177 

omnipresence ; for the constant presence of an in- 
visible witness must be disagreeable to those who 
wish to indulge their sinful propensities. It will be 
painful to think of his power ; for it enables him to 
restrain or destroy, as he pleases : of his sovereignty ; 
for sinners always hate to see themselves in the hands 
of a sovereign God : of his eternity and immutability ; 
for from his possessing these perfections, it follows 
that he will never alter the threatenings which he 
has denounced against sinners, and that he will al- 
ways live to execute them. It will be painful to think 
of him as Judge ; for we shall feel that as sinners, we 
have no reason to expect a favorable sentence from 
his lips. It will even be painful to think of the per- 
fect goodness and excellence of his character ; for his 
goodness leaves us without excuse in rebelling against 
him, and makes our sins appear exceedingly sinful. 
Thus it is evident that the consciousness of sin com- 
mitted and guilt contracted must render the govern- 
ment and all the perfections of God objects of terror 
and anxiety to the sinner, and, of course, the recol- 
lection of them to him must be painful." 

The Eternity of Those who Forget God, 

" No sooner do men leave the body than that holy, 

just, eternal Being, of whom every remembrance 

troubled them, bursts at once, in all his burning 

glories, upon their aching sight ! And if merely to 

remember him were painful, what must the sight of 

him be ? Think of a wretch deprived of his eyelids, 

and condemned to gaze unremittingly at a scorching 

sun, till the balls of sight were withered and dried 

up, and you will have some faint conception of the 

12 



178 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

feelings of a sinful creature doomed to gaze, through 
eternity, at the, to him, heart-withering perfections 
of that God, who is a consuming fire to all the work- 
ers of iniquity." 

Various Means Employed to Save Sinners, 

" God has employed a great variety of means to per- 
suade sinners to embrace the Gospel. He has sent 
judgments to subdue and mercies to melt them ; argu- 
ments to convince and motives to persuade them ; 
threatenings to terrify and invitations to allure them. 
In different parts of his word he has exhibited divine 
truth in every possible variety of form. In one place 
it is presented plainly to the mind in the form of 
doctrines ; in another, it is couched under the vail 
of some instructive and striking parable ; in a third, 
it is presented to us in a garb of types and shadows ; 
in a fourth, it is illustrated by the most beautiful 
figures ; and, in a fifth, exemplified in some well- 
drawn character or interesting portion of history. 
In a word, he addresses us, by turns, in language the 
most plain and simple, the most grand and command- 
ing, the most pointed and energetic, the most sub- 
lime and beautiful, the most impressive and affecting, 
the most pathetic and melting. God and men, this 
world and the next, time and eternity, death and 
judgment, heaven and hell, — these rise successively 
to our view, portrayed in the most vivid colors, and 
exhibited in various forms, while the whole created 
universe is put in requisition to furnish images for 
the illustration of these awful realities ; and the in- 
finite wisdom of God himself is exerted, if I may so 
express it, to the utmost in devising and employing 



Selections from his Works. 179 

the most suitable means to impress them upon our 
minds, and cause them to affect our hearts. Thus 
he has addressed himself, by turns, to our eyes and 
to our ears, to our understandings and consciences, 
to our imaginations and to our affections, to our hopes 
and to our fears ; and caused divine truth to seek 
admission to our minds by every avenue, to try every 
possible way of access." 

Caprice of Sinners in yudging Christians. 

" If professors of religion and its ministers live as 
they ought, ' soberly, righteously, and godly/ they 
are said to be too rigid, superstitious, righteous over- 
much. If, on the contrary, they are of a more cheer- 
ful, social turn, the world immediately exclaims, These 
are your professors, your saints ; but in what respect 
do they differ from others ? If they are punctual in 
attending public and private meetings for religious 
worship, spend much time in prayer, and devote a 
considerable portion of their property to charitable 
and religious purposes, it is immediately said that 
religion makes men idle, and negligent of their fami- 
lies. If, on the other hand, they are industrious, 
frugal, and attentive to business, they are no less 
quickly accused of loving the world as well as their 
neighbors, who make no pretensions to religion. If 
a minister reasons with his hearers in a cool, dispas- 
sionate manner, and labors to convince their under- 
standings, he is accused of being dry and formal in 
his preaching, or of not believing what he says. If 
another preaches in a more lively, animated strain, 
clearly proclaims the terrors of the Lord, and warns 
his hearers to fly from the wrath to come, he is 



180 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

charged with endeavoring to work on men's passions, 
and to frighten them into religion. If he insists 
much on the doctrines of Christianity, the necessity 
of faith, and the impossibility of being justified by our 
own works, he is accused of undervaluing morality, 
and representing the practice of good works as need- 
less. If, on the other hand, he clearly exhibits the 
pure morality of the Gospel, inculcates holiness of 
heart and life, and states the dreadful consequences 
of neglecting it, he is charged with driving men to 
despair by unreasonable strictness and severity. Thus 
in almost innumerable ways men ascribe their neg- 
lect of the Gospel to the faults of its professors, or 
to something in the manner in which it is preached, 
and thus harden themselves and others in unbelief." 

The Natural Affections Christianized. 

" But while all will allow that a naturally bad tem- 
per needs to be sanctified, there are many who by no 
means suppose that tempers naturally amiable equally 
need sanctification. But if we take the Scriptures 
for our guide, a little reflection will convince us that 
this is actually the case. The Scriptures teach, that 
without holiness no man shall see the Lord. But 
there is nothing of the nature of holiness in a natu- 
rally amiable temper. Holiness consists in conform- 
ity to the law of God. But persons who possess 
the temper of which we are speaking naturally pay 
no more regard to the law of God than others do. 
They are not gentle, kind, and affectionate, because 
God requires them to be, or because they wish to 
please him ; for they often live without God in the 
world. They do not naturally love prayer, or the 



Selections from his Works. 181 

Bible, or the Saviour, or any part of religion ; but it 
is as difficult to draw their attention and affections 
to these subjects as it would be if their tempers were 
unamiable. The young ruler who asked our Saviour 
what he should do to inherit eternal life, evidently 
possessed a naturally amiable disposition. Yet when 
Christ said to him, Take up thy cross and follow me, 
he was no more willing to obey than were the scribes 
and Pharisees. Hence we find that when our Saviour 
asserted the necessity of regeneration, repentance, 
and faith, he represented them as alike necessary to 
all, and made no exception in favor of amiable char- 
acters. It is therefore evident that, in his view, such 
characters need sanctification no less than other men. 
Their natural affections must be Christianized, if I 
may so express it, or baptized by the Holy Spirit, 
before they can possess any thing of the nature of 
true religion. Until this is done, they are no more 
Christians, merely for possessing such affections, than 
an animal of a mild and tractable disposition is a 
Christian." 

An Important Distinction. 

" Those who are sanctified and those who are not 
differ very widely, even in those respects in which 
they seem to be alike. For instance, both classes 
eat and drink ; but he who is sanctified eats and 
drinks to the glory of God, while the unconverted 
sinner eats and drinks to gratify himself. Both 
classes love their children ; but in unsanctified per- 
sons parental love is a merely animal affection, inordi- 
nate, wrongly directed, and not subordinate to the 
love of God ; in those who are sanctified, on the con- 



1 82 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

trary, it is a holy affection rightly directed, regulated 
by God's law, and in subordination to his love. Both 
classes may pity and relieve the distressed ; but the 
former are led to do this by a blind animal instinct, 
which is capricious, irregular, and partial in its opera- 
tions ; while the compassion of the latter is elevated 
and ennobled by divine grace, and resembles that 
which glowed in the bosom of our Saviour. Both 
classes may possess amiable tempers and live correct 
moral lives ; but the amiable tempers of the former, 
and the morality which they sometimes produce, do 
not spring from religion ; they are not influenced by 
religion ; nor have they any reference either to God 
and his law or to Christ and his Gospel. The tem- 
per and morals of the latter, on the contrary, spring 
from religion in the heart ; they are the effects of 
God's law written in the heart ; their love to men 
flows wholly from love to God ; their morality is true 
Christian morality, and they are constrained by the 
love of Christ to imitate his example. In short, the 
governing motives, the main-springs of action, in the 
sanctified and unsanctified man, are totally different ; 
and since God looks at motives — since, in his view, 
the character of every action is determined by its 
motive — it is evident that the same actions which 
are good when performed by a good man, may be 
altogether wrong when performed by a sinner. The 
sanctified and the unsanctified may apparently re- 
semble each other in temper and conduct, and yet 
the latter may be justly punished, while the former 
are rewarded." 



Selections from his Works. 183 

"He shall See of the Travail of his Soul and be 

Satisfied." 

" This prediction has already been partially fulfilled. 
Already has our Redeemer seen much of the fruit of 
his sufferings. Our once barren world, watered by 
his tears and his blood, has already produced a large 
harvest of righteousness and salvation. His cross, 
like Aaron's rod, has budded and blossomed, and be- 
gun to bear precious, incorruptible fruit. From his 
cross sprang all the religious knowledge, all the real 
goodness, all the true happiness which have existed 
among mortals since the fall. On his cross, which, 
like the ladder seen by Jacob in vision, unites heaven 
and earth, myriads of immortal beings who were 
sinking into the bottomless abyss have ascended to 
the celestial mansions ; — other myriads, now alive, 
are following them in the ascent. In the patriarchs, 
prophets, and pious Israelites ; in the apostles and 
other primitive preachers of Christianity ; in the 
numerous converts who, by their instrumentality, 
were turned from darkness to light ; in all the truly 
pious individuals who have since existed among men ; 
in all the real Christians who are now on earth, our 
Redeemer has seen the fruits of his sufferings. In 
every real Christian now present he sees one of these 
fruits ; sees a soul which has been redeemed by his 
blood from endless wretchedness and despair, and 
made an heir of glory and honor and immortality. 
O then, how much, how very much, has he already 
seen effected in fulfillment of the promise before us ! 
How many immortal souls have been plucked as 
brands from everlasting burnings ! How many indi- 



184 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

viduals have been instructed, sanctified, pardoned, 
comforted, and made more than conquerors through 
Him who loved them ! How many pious families 
have rejoiced together in his goodness ! How many- 
Churches have been planted, watered, and made to 
flourish ! How much happiness have the members 
of all these Churches enjoyed in life, in death, and in 
heaven ! What an exceedingly great and almost in- 
numerable multitude of happy spirits, redeemed from 
among men, are now surrounding the throne of God 
and the Lamb ! And even while I speak, the number 
of these happy spirits, and the harvest which springs 
from a Saviours sufferings, is increasing. Even 
while I speak, sinners in different parts of the world 
are flocking into the kingdom of God. Even while 
I speak, immortal souls, washed in a Saviour's blood, 
sanctified by his Spirit, and just made victorious over 
the last enemy, death, are entering heaven from the 
four quarters of the globe, and commencing their 
everlasting song, ' Now unto Him that loved us, and 
washed us from our sins in his own blood, be glory 
and dominion for ever and ever/ 

" And while our thrice blessed Redeemer has thus 
seen, and still sees, the happiness of human beings 
increased by his sufferings, he has also seen, and still 
sees, the glory of God augmented in an equal degree. 
He has seen millions who were once enemies to his 
Father, transformed to friends ; he has seen millions 
who once blindly worshiped false gods, and ascribed 
to them the glory of creating, preserving, and gov- 
erning the world, turning from their worthless idols 
to worship the only living and true God, who made 
heaven and earth. He has seen his Father's law 



Selections from his Works. 185 

obeyed and honored by multitudes, who, but for him, 
would have continued to trample it under foot. He 
has seen ten thousand times ten thousand of prayers 
and ascriptions of praise ascending from a world 
which, but for his interposition, would never have 
offered one of these acceptable spiritual sacrifices to 
his Father. He has seen the eternal throne sur- 
rounded, and him who sits upon it adored, by almost 
countless multitudes who were once dishonoring God 
on earth, and preparing to blaspheme him in hell. 
In fine, he has seen his religion flying through the 
world as on angel's wings, scattering blessings wher- 
ever she comes, and loudly proclaiming peace on 
earth, good-will to men, and glory to God in the 
highest. Surely, then, the prediction before us has 
already been partially fulfilled.' , 

The Happiness of yesus Christ, 

"Estimate as far as you are able the amount of 
happiness which a single individual will enjoy in 
heaven during a whole eternity. Proceed to multiply 
this amount of happiness by the almost countless 
number of the redeemed. Then recollect that Jesus 
Christ has said, ' It is more blessed to give than to 
receive ;' that is, there is more blessedness, or happi- 
ness, in giving than in receiving. Now Jesus Christ 
gives, and saints and angels receive, all the happiness 
which creatures will ever enjoy in heaven. Of course, 
as the giver of this happiness is more blessed, more 
happy, than all the receivers, could we then concen- 
trate in one bosom all the happiness which is enjoyed 
by all the saints and angels in heaven it would still 
be inferior, far inferior, to that which is enjoyed by 



1 86 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

Jesus Christ alone. Christian, does not your heart 
exult to hear of the happiness which your Saviour 
enjoys ? Does it not labor, and swell almost to burst- 
ing, while vainly attempting to fathom that bottom- 
less tide of felicity which every moment pours, and 
through eternity will continue to pour, all its fullness 
into his infinite mind!" 

The Battle and the Victory. 

" Let no one say, t Since God has promised that his 
Son shall see of the travail of his soul and be satis- 
fied, we may safely sit still and leave him to fulfill 
this promise/ He will indeed fulfill it, but he will 
fulfill it by human agency. And before it can be 
fulfilled, before every enemy can be put under our 
Saviour's feet, many exertions must be made, much 
treasure expended, aud many battles fought. Satan, 
the prince and god of this world, will not resign his 
usurped dominion without a struggle. The more 
clearly he perceives that his time is short, the greater 
will be his wrath, and the more violent his efforts. 
During that portion of time which yet remains, the 
war which he has long waged with the Captain of our 
salvation will be carried on with unexampled fury. 
If you would survey the progress and result of this 
war, cast your eyes over the world, which is to be at 
once the field of battle and the prize of victory. See 
the earth filled with strongholds and high places, in 
which the prince of darkness has fortified and made 
himself strong against the Almighty. See all the 
hosts of hell, and a large proportion of the inhabit- 
ants, the power, the wealth, the talents, and influence 
of the world ranged under his infernal standard. See 



Selections from his Works. 187 

his whole artillery of falsehoods, sophistries, objec- 
tions, temptations, and persecution brought into the 
field, to be employed against the cause of truth. See 
ten thousand pens, and ten times ten thousand 
tongues, hurling his poisoned darts among its friends. 
On the other hand, see the comparatively small band 
of our Saviour's faithful soldiers drawn up in oppos- 
ing ranks, and advancing to the assault, clothed in 
panoply divine, the banner waving over their heads, 
while in their hands they wield unsheathed the sword 
of the Spirit, the word of God, the only weapon which 
they are allowed or wish to employ. The charge is 
sounded, the assault is made, the battle is joined, — 
far and wide its fury rages ; over mountains and 
plains, over islands and continents, extends the long 
line of conflict ; for a time, alternate victory and de- 
feat wait on either side. Now, exulting acclamations 
from the Christian army proclaim the fall of some 
stronghold of Satan. Anon, infuriated shouts from 
the opposing ranks announce to the world that the 
cause of Christ is losing ground, or that some Chris- 
tian standard-bearer has fallen. Meanwhile, far above 
the noise and tumult of the battle, the Captain of our 
salvation sits serene, issuing his commands, directing 
the motions of his followers, sending seasonable aid 
to such as are ready to faint, and occasionally causing 
to be seen the lighting down of his own glorious arm, 
before which whole squadrons fall, or fly, or yield 
themselves willing captives. Feeble, and yet more 
feeble still, gradually becomes the opposition of his 
foes. Loud, and yet louder still, rise the triumphant 
acclamations of his friends, till at length the cry of 
Victory ! victory ! resounds from earth to heaven ; 



1 88 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

and, Victory ! victory ! is echoed back from heaven 
to earth. The warfare ceases ; the prize is won ; all 
enemies are put under the conquering Saviour's feet ; 
the whole earth, with joy, receives her king ; and his 
kingdom, which consists in righteousness, and peace, 
and holy joy, becomes co-extensive with the world." 

The Sword of the Spirit in the Hand of Omnipotence. 

" Of what use is a sword, even though it be the 
sword of Goliath, while it lies still in its scabbard, 
or is grasped by the powerless hand of an infant ? 
In those circumstances it can neither conquer nor 
defend, however well suited it might be to do both in 
the hand of a warrior. It is the same with the sword 
of the Spirit. While it lies in its scabbard, or is 
wielded only by the infantile hand of Christ's minis- 
ters, it is a powerless and useless weapon ; a weapon 
at which the weakest sinner can laugh, and against 
which he can defend himself with the utmost ease. 
But not so when He, who is Most Mighty, girds it 
on. Then it becomes a weapon of tremendous power ! 
a weapon resistless as the bolt of heaven ! ' Is not 
my word like a fire, and a hammer, saith the Lord, 
which breaketh the rock in pieces ? ' It is indeed ; 
for what can be more efficacious and irresistible than 
a weapon sharper than a two-edged sword, wielded 
by the arm of Omnipotence ? What must His sword 
be whose glance is the lightning ? Armed with this 
weapon, the Captain of our salvation cuts his way to 
the sinner with infinite ease, though surrounded by 
rocks and mountains ; scatters his strongholds and 
refuges of lies ; and with a mighty blow cleaves 
asunder his heart of adamant, and lays him prostrate 



Selections from his Works. 189 

and trembling at his feet. Since such are the effects 
of this weapon in the hand of Christ, it is with the 
utmost propriety that the Psalmist begins by request 
ing him to gird it on, and not suffer it to be inactive 
in its scabbard, or powerless in the feeble grasp of 
his ministers." 

The Glory and Majesty of Christ. 

"In what do the glory and majesty of Christ 
consist ? I answer, Glory is the display, or mani- 
festation, of excellency. Now Christ is possessed of 
excellences or perfections of various kinds ; he has 
some excellences, which belong to him as God ; some, 
which belong to him as man ; and some, which are 
peculiar to him as God and man united in one per- 
son. Of course he has a threefold glory. This glory, 
as God, consists in a display of the infinite perfec- 
tions and excellences of his nature. This glory he 
possessed with his Father before the world was. 
His glory as man consists in the perfect holiness 
of his heart and life. His glory as God and man 
united in one person, the Mediator, consists in his 
perfect suitableness to perform all those works which 
the office of mediator requires of him. This is the 
glory of which St. John speaks, ' We behold his glory, 
the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full 
of grace and truth/ This is the glory in which 
Christ appears when he goes forth to subdue sinners 
to himself ; and this, therefore, is the glory which is 
meant in our text. If it be asked in what this glory 
more particularly consists, I answer, It consists in a 
fullness or sufficiency of every excellence and perfec- 
tion necessary to qualify him for the all-important 



190 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

office of mediator between God and man ; every thing 
which is necessary either to satisfy the justice and 
honor of God, or to excite and justify the utmost love, 
admiration, and confidence of man. Now all this 
Christ possesses in perfection. He possesses every 
thing necessary to satisfy the justice and secure the 
honor of God ; for he has once and again declared, 
by a voice from heaven, that in him, or with him, he 
is ever well pleased. He also possesses every thing 
necessary to excite, encourage, and justify the highest 
love, admiration, and confidence of sinful men ; for 
in him all fullness dwells, even all the fullness of the 
Godhead. There is in him a fullness of truth to en- 
lighten sinners, and lead them to believe in him ; for 
in him are hidden all the treasures of divine wisdom 
and knowledge. He has also a fullness of grace, to 
pardon, sanctify, and save them ; for the riches of his 
grace are unsearchable. Now the display or mani- 
festation of this infinite fullness of grace and truth 
constitutes the glory in which the Psalmist wished 
Christ to appear. He wished him also to appear in 
his majesty. The difference between majesty and 
glory consists in this : glory is something which 
belongs either to the person or the character of a 
being, but majesty is more properly an attribute of 
office, especially of regal office. This office Christ 
sustains. He is exalted to be a Prince as well as a 
Saviour ; he is King of kings and Lord of lords ; and 
it is principally in his character of a king that he 
subdues his enemies, and dispenses pardon. The 
Psalmist, therefore, wished him to appear in this 
character, arrayed in his awful majesty, that while 
his glory excited admiration, and delight, and love, 



Selections from his Works. 191 

his majesty might produce reverential awe, and lead 
sinners to submission and obedience." 

The Prophet's Vision, 

"While beseeching the Redeemer to ride forth 
prosperously, and predicting his success, the prophet 
seems suddenly to have seen his prayers answered, 
and his predictions fulfilled. He saw his all-conquer- 
ing Prince gird on his resistless sword ; array him- 
self in glory and majesty ; ascend the chariot of his 
Gospel, display the banner of his cross, and ride forth, 
as on the wings of the wind, while the tremendous 
voice of a herald proclaimed before him, Prepare ye 
the way of the Lord ; exalt the valleys and level the 
hills ; make the crooked ways straight and the rough 
places plain ; for, behold, the Lord God comes ; he 
comes with a strong hand ; his reward is with him, 
and his work before him. From the bright and fiery 
cloud which enveloped his chariot, and concealed it 
from mortal eyes, he saw sharp arrows of conviction, 
shot forth on every side, deeply wounding the obdu- 
rate hearts of sinners, and prostrating them in crowds 
around his path, while his extended right hand raised 
them again, and healed the wounds which his arrows 
had made, and his omnipotent voice spoke peace to 
their despairing souls, and bade them follow in his 
train, and witness and share in his triumph. From 
the same bright cloud he saw the vengeful lightnings 
flashing thick and dreadful, to blast and consume 
every thing that opposed his progress ; he saw sin, 
and death, and hell with all its legions, baffled, de- 
feated, and flying in. trembling consternation before 
him ; he saw them overtaken, bound, and chained 



192 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

to his triumphant chariot wheels; while enraptured 
voices were heard from heaven exclaiming, Now is 
come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of 
God, and the power of his Christ. Such was the 
scene which seems to have burst upon the ravished 
sight of the entranced prophet. Transported with 
the view, he exclaims, Thine arrows are sharp in the 
hearts of thine enemies, whereby the people fall 
under thee." 

A Revival Scene. 

"And similar scenes, though on a smaller scale, 
are witnessed by the eye of faith in every place 
through which Christ now rides invisibly in the 
chariot of his salvation. Then the sword of the 
Spirit, the word of God, which, in the feeble hands of 
his ministers, had long seemed like a sword rusting 
in its scabbard, or grasped by an infant, becomes a 
weapon of resistless energy. Then the arrows of 
conviction, which had been vainly aimed and feebly 
sent, are guided between the joints of the harness, 
and sinners feel them quivering in their hearts. 
Then the obdurate and incorrigible enemies of Christ 
are either laid low by the stroke of death or blasted 
and seared by the lightnings of his vengeance, and 
left, like a withered oak on which the bolt of heaven 
has fallen, to stand naked and barren, till the ap- 
pointed time for cutting them down and casting them 
into the fire ! Then truth, and meekness, and right- 
eousness, which had long seemed dead, revive, and 
ignorance, falsehood, and unrighteousness are com- 
pelled to fly. Then the bonds of sin are burst ; 
Satan is unable to retain his captives ; death and 
the grave lose their terrors ; joyful acclamations are 



Selections from his Works. 193 

heard in heaven, celebrating the return of penitent 
sinners ; and crowds of those whom Christ's arrows 
have wounded and his right hand healed again, are 
seen flocking around his chariot, shouting the praises 
and extolling the triumphs of their great Deliverer ; 
while those who, like the Psalmist, have been praying 
and waiting for his appearance, join in the song, and 
exultingly cry, Thine arrows are sharp in the hearts 
of thine enemies, whereby the people fall under thee." 

A Desperate and Fatal Game. 

" You would pity and condemn the madness of a 
man who should stake his whole fortune on the turn 
of a die, without the smallest prospect of gain. But, 
my delaying hearers, you are playing a far more 
dreadful and desperate game than this. You are 
staking your souls, your salvation, on the continu- 
ance of life ; on an event as uncertain as the turn 
of the die. You stake them without any equivalent ; 
for if life should be spared you gain nothing ; but 
should it be cut short you lose all — you are ruined 
for eternity. You run the risk of losing every thing 
dear, and of incurring everlasting misery — for what ? 
For the sake of living a little longer without religion, 
of spending a few more days or years in disobeying 
and offending your Creator, of committing sins which 
you know must be repented of. And is it wise — 
rather, is it not madness — to incur such a risk ? Let 
the following case furnish the reply. I will suppose 
that you intend to defer the commencement of a 
religious life for one year only. Select, then, the 
most healthy, vigorous person of your acquaintance ; 

the man whose prospects are fairest for long life, and 

13 



194 Mementoes of Edward Payson, 

say, whether you would be willing to stake your soul 
on the chance of that man's life continuing for a 
year ? Would you be willing to say, I consent to 
forfeit salvation, to be miserable forever, if that man 
dies before the expiration of a year ? There is not, I 
presume, a single person present who would not 
shudder at the thought of entering into such an en- 
gagement if he supposed it would be binding. My 
delaying hearers, if you would not stake your salva- 
tion on the continuance of any other person's life, 
why will you stake it on the continuance of your 
own ? Yet this you evidently do when you resolve 
to defer repentance to a future period ; for if you die 
before that period arrives you die impenitent, unpre- 
pared, and perish forever. O, then, play no longer 
this desperate game ; a game in which millions have 
staked and lost their souls ; but if you intend ever to 
become religious begin to-day, for to-morrow is not." 

The Difficulty of Convincing Men of Sin. 

"It is always exceedingly difficult to convince a 
man against his will, to convince him of any un- 
welcome or disagreeable truth ; and the more dis- 
agreeable any truth is, so much the more difficult it 
becomes to produce a conviction of it. How difficult 
it is, for instance, to convince a consumptive man of 
his danger. How difficult to make men sensible of 
their own faults, or to make fond and injudicious 
parents see the faults of their children. But there is 
no truth more disagreeable to men — no one, there- 
fore, of which they are so unwilling to be convinced — 
as that which asserts their exceeding sinfulness. To 
see their sins is mortifying,, is painful, is alarming. 



Selections from his Works. 195 

They will therefore shut their eyes against the sight 
as long as possible. Many sins they will deny them- 
selves to be guilty of; what they cannot deny they 
will extenuate ; and for those which they cannot ex- 
tenuate, they will make a thousand excuses. If the 
fallacy of one excuse is shown they will fly to another, 
and from that to a third, and fourth ; and when all 
their pleas and excuses are answered, they will return 
and urge them all a second time with as much confi- 
dence as at first." 

Compassion for the Perishing. 

" My arm is too weak to draw you out of that fatal 
current which is rapidly sweeping you away to de- 
struction. I can only sit on the bank and weep, as 
I contemplate the increasing strength of the current, 
and breathe out in agony cries to that God who can 
alone rescue you from its power, and prevent it from 
hurrying you into that bottomless gulf in which it 
terminates. And come you, my Christian hearers, 
come all, who have been rescued from this fatal cur- 
rent ; all, who can feel compassion for perishing im- 
mortals, come and assist in crying to Him for help. 
That you may be excited to this, look at the scene 
before you. Look around, and see how many of your 
children, acquaintances, and friends are swept away 
toward perdition, while they sleep and know it not, 
and no voice, but that of God, can rouse them. Do 
you know whither they are hastening? Do you 
know what hell is ? Do you consider how improb- 
able it is that they will escape its condemnation ? Do 
you consider, that unless grace prevents they will, in 
a few years, be lifting up their eyes in torment and 



196 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

despair? Surely, if you know and consider these 
things, one universal cry of ' God have mercy upon 
them ! ' will burst from every Christian heart" 

The Strange Contrast. 

" See Jesus adorned with every possible excel- 
lence and perfection, uttering the kindest invitations, 
and bestowing freely the richest blessings — blessings 
which cost him labors, privations, and sufferings, the 
greatness of which we can never estimate. See him, 
in return for these blessings, treated with the most 
cruel unkindness, ingratitude, and neglect ; wounded 
in the house of his friends by those who have eaten 
at his table, and trespassed against, on every side, by 
multitudes in ten thousand ways. See him still for- 
giving all these trespasses, repeating his forgiveness 
a thousand and ten thousand times ; maintaining, as 
it were, a contest as to which shall exceed, they in 
trespassing or he in pardoning." 

Thanksgiving in Paradise. 

" These sacred and delightful services being ended, 
they prepare to feast before their Benefactor ; but 
this preparation is made, and the feast itself is par- 
ticipated in with the same feelings which animated 
their devotions ; for whether they eat, or drink, or 
whatever they do, they do all to the glory of God. 
On such an occasion they may, perhaps, place upon 
their board a greater variety than usual of the fruits 
of Paradise ; but if so, it is not so much with a view 
to gratify their appetites as to exhibit more fully the 
various and ample provision which God has made for 
them ; and thus, through the medium of their senses, 



Selections from his Works. 197 

to affect their hearts ; for man has not yet begun to 
consume the bounty of Heaven upon his lusts. He 
has not yet yielded himself a willing, but ignoble, 
slave to his corporeal appetites ; nor, we may add, 
has he yet learned, as too many of his posterity have 
since done, to sit down to the table of Providence, 
and rise from it refreshed, without acknowledging the 
Hand that feeds him. No, the blessing of God is im- 
plored and his presence desired, as the crowning joy 
of their feast, without which even the fruits of Paradise 
would be insipid, and the society of Paradise unin- 
teresting. And while they sit around his table, the 
viands which nourish their bodies furnish their minds 
with new food for devotional feeling ; for in every fruit 
before them they see the power, wisdom, and goodness 
of their Benefactor embodied, and made perceptible 
to their senses ; they see that his goodness prompted 
him to give them that gratification, that his wisdom 
devised it, and that his power gave it existence. Thus 
while they feast upon the fruits of his bounty their 
souls feast upon the perfections which those fruits 
display. Thus God is seen and enjoyed in every 
thing, and every thing leads up their thoughts and 
affections to him, while he sits unseen in the midst 
of them, shedding abroad his love through all their 
hearts, and rejoicing with benevolent delight in the 
happiness which he at once imparts and witnesses. 
Meanwhile their conversation is such as the attend- 
ing angels, who hover around, would not be ashamed 
to utter ; nay, such as God himself is well pleased to 
hear. The law of kindness is on all their lips, for the 
law of love is in all their hearts. 

"But we can pursue this part of our subject no 



198 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

further. This must suffice as a specimen of the 
manner in which sinless creatures would keep a feast 
unto the Lord ; indeed, of the manner in which all 
their days would be spent. And if so, may we not 
well exclaim, O sin, what hast thou done ! What 
beauty, what glory, what happiness hast thou de- 
stroyed ! How hast thou embittered our food ; poi- 
soned our cup ; darkened the eye which once saw 
God in all his works ; polluted and rendered insensible 
the heart which once bore his image and was filled 
with his love ; and by one fatal, accursed blow, mur- 
dered both the body and the soul of man ! Who can 
wonder that God hates — who can refrain from hating 
— the destroyer of so much good, the cause of so 
much evil ? Were it not for sin, we should observe 
this day in a manner as holy and as happy as has 
now been described. We have the same powers and 
faculties which were possessed by our first parents 
in Paradise. And if we may believe the declarations 
of Scripture, or the testimony of good men, God's 
glory still shines as brightly in his works as it did 
then. There is nothing but our own sinfulness to 
prevent us from seeing it as clearly as it was seen 
by our first parents, and from being affected by the 
sight as they were affected." 

How Christians Should Keep Thanksgiving Day. 

" Even while observing a joyful festival, tears, the 
fountain of which is supplied by godly sorrow for sin 
and gratitude to the Redeemer — tears, which it is 
delightful to shed — are seen on the same counte- 
nances which glow with love and hope, and beam 
with holy, humble joy in God. 



Selections from his Works. 199 

" And when they sit down to the table of Provi- 
dence to feast upon his bounty, the exercise of these 
emotions is not suspended. They feel there as par- 
doned sinners ought to feel, and as they would wish 
to feel at the table of Christ, for the table of Provi- 
dence is become to them his table; they remember 
him there ; they remember, that whenever their daily 
food was forfeited by sin, and the curse of Heaven 
rested upon their basket and store, he redeemed the 
forfeiture, and turned the curse into a blessing. 
Hence they feast upon his bounty with feelings re- 
sembling those which we may suppose to have filled 
the bosoms of Joseph's brethren when they ate and 
rejoiced before him. They had, you recollect, hated 
him, persecuted him, conspired to effect his death, 
and sold him for a slave. But by the providence of 
God he was exalted to power, and had the satisfac- 
tion, not only of seeing them humbled at his feet, but 
of saving them and their families from death. After 
he had made himself known to them, assured them 
of his forgiveness, and showed them that though they 
meant evil against him God had overruled it for good, 
he invited them to a feast, and richly loaded their 
table with provisions from his own. We may, in 
some measure, conceive what their feelings must 
have been on such an occasion. Though they feast- 
ed and rejoiced before their highly exalted, but gen- 
erous, forgiving, and affectionate brother, yet feelings 
of sorrow and shame could not but mingle with their 
joy, and they must often have felt as if they wished 
to rise from their table, throw themselves at his feet, 
and once more ask his forgiveness. Well, then, may 
the redeemed sinner feel thus, while he feasts and 



200 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

rejoices before that much injured, exalted, and com- 
passionate Saviour who is not ashamed to call him 
brother, and who has not only redeemed and for- 
given him, but called him to share in all his posses- 
sions and glories. And while such emotions toward 
the Saviour fill the heart, his name cannot be absent 
from the tongue. Husbands and wives will speak of 
him to each other ; parents will speak of him to their 
children ; his person, his character, his offices, and 
his works, will furnish the subject of their conversa- 
tions and instructions ; and a realizing apprehension 
of his unseen presence, far from damping their joy, 
will only chastise, and purify, and exalt it." 

The State of the World at the Second Coining of Christ. 

"' When the Son of man cometh/ says our Saviour, 
( will he find faith on the earth ? ' That is, will he 
find many who believe in him and expect his coming? 
a mode of expression which forcibly intimates that 
he will not. In another passage he teaches us that, 
at his second coming, he will find the world in the 
same situation in which it was found by the flood in 
the days of Noah, and in which Sodom was in the 
days of Lot. 'As it was/ says he, 'in the days of 
Noah and of Lot, so shall it be in the day when the 
Son of man is revealed/ or appears. ' They ate, they 
drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they 
builded, and knew not, till the day in which Noah 
entered into the ark, and the flood came and destroyed 
them all/ 

" From these, and other passages, it is evident that 
at the second coming of Christ there will be very 
little religion, very few pious men found in the world. 



Selections from his Works. 201 

But it may be asked, How does this representation 
agree with the many predictions which assure us 
that religion is yet to prevail, in a far greater degree 
than it ever has done, and that the knowledge of 
God shall fill the earth, even as the waters cover the 
sea? We shall find an answer to this question in 
the twentieth chapter of Revelation. We are there 
taught that the great tempter and deceiver of man- 
kind, who deceiveth the whole world, shall be bound 
for a thousand years ; that is, during that period he 
shall not be permitted to tempt or deceive mankind, 
and in consequence religion will almost universally 
prevail. To this period, all the passages which speak 
of the great extension of Christ's kingdom refer. But 
after the expiration of this period, the great adversary 
will be released for a season ; in other words, he will 
be suffered to renew his temptations ; the conse- 
quence will be a great and almost universal apostasy. 
Religion will be ridiculed and opposed, and its friends 
persecuted with peculiar rancor ; the Church will 
be compassed about with enemies, and on the very 
point of being swallowed up ; and then, in the critical 
moment, will be seen the signs of the Son of man 
coming in the clouds of heaven." 

Christ's Second Coming Described. 

" Let all who are dazzled or fascinated by the pomp 
and splendor of the world, come and contemplate a 
scene which stains the pride of all human glory, and 
throws far back into the deepest shade every thing 
which men call great, or splendid, or sublime. What 
are the pompous triumphs, the gaudy pageants, the 
long processions on which men gaze with eager de- 



202 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

light, compared with the descent of the Creator, the 
Judge, from heaven, surrounded by all the seraphic 
hosts, and bearing with him the final sentence, the 
eternal, unchangeable destiny, of every child of 
Adam ? Pause, then, for a moment, and contemplate 
with the eye of faith, or, if you have no faith, with 
the eye of imagination, this tremendous scene. Look 
at that point, far away in the ethereal regions, where 
the gradually lessening form of our Saviour disap- 
peared from the gaze of his disciples when he ascend- 
ed to heaven. In that point see an uncommon, but 
faint and undefined, brightness just beginning to 
appear. It has caught the roving eye of yon careless 
gazer, and excited his curiosity. He points it out to 
a second and a third. A little circle soon collects, 
and various are the conjectures which they form re- 
specting it. Similar circles are formed, and similar 
conjectures made, in a thousand different parts of 
the world. But conjecture is soon to give place to 
certainty — awful, appalling, overwhelming certainty. 
While they gaze, the appearance which had excited 
their curiosity rapidly approaches, and still more rap- 
idly brightens. Some begin to suspect what it may 
prove ; but no one dares to give utterance to his 
suspicions. Meanwhile, the light of the sun begins 
to fade before a brightness superior to his own. 
Thousands see their shadows cast in a new direction, 
and thousands of hitherto careless eyes look up at 
once to discover the cause. Full clearly they see it ; 
and now new hopes and fears begin to agitate their 
breasts. The afflicted and persecuted servants of 
Christ begin to hope that the predicted, long-expect- 
ed day of their deliverance is arrived. The wicked, 



Selections from his Works. 203 

the careless, the unbelieving, begin to fear that the 
Bible is about to prove no idle tale. And now fiery- 
shapes, moving like streams of lightning, begin to 
appear indistinctly amid the bright dazzling cloud, 
which comes rushing down as on the wings of a 
whirlwind. At length it reaches its destined place. 
It pauses ; then, suddenly unfolding, discloses at 
once a great white throne, where sits, starry resplen- 
dent, in all the glories of the Godhead, the man Christ 
Jesus. Every eye sees him, every heart knows him. 
Too well do the wretched, unprepared inhabitants of 
earth now know what to expect ; and one universal 
shriek of anguish and despair rises to heaven, and is 
echoed back to earth. But louder, far louder than 
the universal cry, now sounds the last trumpet ; and 
far above all is heard the voice of the Omnipotent 
summoning the dead to rise and come to judgment. 

" New terrors now assail the living ; on every 1 
side, nay, under their very feet, the earth heaves, as 
in convulsions, graves open, and the dead come 
forth ; while at the same moment a change, equivalent 
to that occasioned by death, is effected by almighty 
power on the bodies of the living. Their mortal 
bodies put on immortality, and are thus prepared to 
sustain a weight of glory or of wretchedness which 
flesh and blood could not endure. Meanwhile, legions 
of angels are seen darting from pole to pole, gather- 
ing together the faithful servants of Christ from the 
four winds of heaven, and bearing them aloft to meet 
the Lord in the air, where he causes them to be 
placed at his own right hand, preparatory to the sen- 
tence which is to award to them everlasting life. 
Such, my brethren, is the scene which you will one 



204 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

day witness. And where now are the pomps, the 
honors, the riches, and pleasures of this world, which 
yesterday appeared so dazzling ? Has not all their 
brightness faded, even in your estimation ? Ought 
they not to appear, must they not appear, as less 
than nothing and vanity to him who looks for, who 
firmly believes, that he shall see such a spectacle as 
this ? Can you wonder that faith in such truths — the 
faith of the Christian — should overcome the world ? 
Christian, if you gain more and greater victories 
over the world than you ever have done, bring this 
scene often before the eye of your mind, and gaze 
upon it till you • become blind to all earthly glory. 
He who gazes long at the sun becomes unsusceptible 
of impression from inferior luminaries ; and he who 
looks much at the Sun of Righteousness will be little 
affected by any alluring object which the world can 
exhibit." 

Man Capable of Equality with Angels. 

" Man is capable of being raised to an intellectual 
equality with the angels, or being made equal to 
them in wisdom and knowledge. The image of God, 
in which he was created, included knowledge as well 
as righteousness and true holiness. And while he 
retained this image — while he stood crowned by his 
Makers hand with glory and honor, and invested 
with the dominion of the world in which he dwelt — 
he was, as inspiration informs us, but little lower 
than the angels. The inferiority here intended must, 
it is acknowledged, have been an intellectual inferi- 
ority. But this small intellectual inferiority on the 
part of man may be satisfactorily accounted for with- 



Selections from his Works. 205 

out supposing that his intellectual faculties are essen- 
tially inferior to those of angels, or that his mind is 
incapable of expanding to the full dimensions of an- 
gelic intelligence. It may be accounted for by differ- 
ence of situation, and of advantages for intellectual 
improvement. Man was placed on the earth, which 
is God's footstool ; but angels were placed in heaven, 
which is his throne, his palace, and the peculiar hab- 
itation of his holiness and glory. They were thus 
enabled to approach much nearer to the great Father 
of lights than could earth-born man ; and their minds 
were, in consequence, illuminated with far more than 
a double portion of that divine, all-disclosing radi- 
ance which diffuses itself around him. While man 
was compelled to drink from the streams, they could 
repair at once to the fountain. Nor must it be for- 
gotten that man was encumbered with a body which 
demanded daily supplies of food ; while angels, free 
from all these incumbrances, and upborne on wings 
which never tire, were able to maintain an uninter- 
rupted and unceasing flight. Who, then, will wonder 
that man, thus situated, thus encumbered, should be 
a little lower than the angels in the intellectual scale ? 
But free him, as he will hereafter be freed, from all 
the weights and fetters with which a gross, material 
body encumbers his immortal mind ; place him, as 
the good will hereafter be placed in heaven, fast by 
the throne of an irradiating God ; let him, instead of 
seeing all things as through a glass darkly, behold 
his Creator face to face ; and who will undertake to 
prove, who will venture to assert, that he will remain 
even a little lower than the angels ; that he will not, 
in wisdom and intelligence, soar to an equal height 



206 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

with them ? Such an assertion, if made, must be 
entirely without support ; for we know, we can con- 
ceive, of no intellectual faculties possessed by angels 
which are not possessed by man ; we neither know 
nor can conceive of any assignable limits either to the 
advancement of the human mind in knowledge or to 
the possible expansion of its faculties. So far as we 
know, or can conceive, it is capable of every thing of 
which any created mind can be capable. If the mind 
of an infant can expand, during the lapse of a few 
years, to the dimensions of a Newton's mind, not- 
withstanding all the unfavorable circumstances in 
which it is here placed, why may it not, during an 
eternal residence in heaven, with the omniscient, all- 
wise God for its teacher, expand so far as to embrace 
any finite circle whatever ? Who can place his finger 
on any assignable spot, and say, Thus far can it go 
and no farther? We seem, then, to have sufficient 
reason for believing that man is capable of being 
raised to an intellectual equality with the angels." 

Mans Capabilities Invest the Cross with Sublimity, 

" How inestimable does the worth of the human 
soul appear — how clearly is it seen to exceed that of 
the whole world — when we view it as endued with a 
capacity of being made equal to the angels ! How 
momentous an event occurs when such a soul is born 
into the world ! When an immortal being com- 
mences a flight through endless duration ; a flight 
which will raise him high to an equality with angels, 
or plunge him low among malignant demons and 
fiends ! Think of this, ye parents ! ye, to whom is 
committed the care of giving to this flight its earliest 



Selections from his Works. 207 

direction, and on whom it much depends, under God, 
what its termination shall be. How grand, let me 
further remark, how Godlike, how every way worthy 
of himself, does the object of our Saviours interposi- 
tion in behalf of ruined man appear when viewed in 
the light of this subject ! In this light, how clearly 
is his Gospel seen to be glad tidings. What moral 
glory and sublimity surround his cross, when we 
contemplate him as voluntarily suspended there for 
the purpose of raising such a creature as man from 
the depravity, degradation, and wretchedness of apos- 
tate spirits, to an equality with the angels in God's 
presence ! And how evident does it appear, that the 
reward which raised them to such a height must 
be conferred on them from respect rather to their 
Saviour's merits than to their own ! " 

Motives to Imitate the Angels. 

"What can be more obvious, more undeniable, 
than the conclusion, that if you hope to be made 
equal to the angels hereafter you ought to imitate, so 
far as is practicable, angels now ? That you may be 
induced to imitate them, and to climb with greater 
diligence and alacrity the steep ascent before you, 
let me persuade you to fix your eyes upon its sum- 
mit. A dense, impenetrable cloud appears, indeed, 
to conceal it from mortal eyes ; but inspiration 
speaks, and the cloud is dissipated ; faith presents 
her glass, and the sun-bright summit is seen. On 
Him who sits enthroned upon it you cannot, indeed, 
gaze. His glories, though you shall see them un- 
vailed hereafter, are too insufferably dazzling for mor- 
tal eyes to sustain. But contemplate the resplendent 



208 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

forms which float around him in an atmosphere of 
pure, celestial light. See their bodies, resembling 
sunbeams seven times refined. See their counte- 
nances, beaming with intelligence, purity, benevo- 
lence, and felicity. Through their transparent bodies 
look in, and contemplate the souls which inhabit 
them, expanded to the full dimensions of angelic 
minds, bearing the perfect image of their God, and 
reflecting his glories as the polished mirror reflects 
the glories of the noonday sun. This, O Christian, 
is what thou shalt hereafter be ! These dazzling 
forms were once sinful dust and ashes, like thyself. 
But grace, free, rich, sovereign, almighty grace, has 
made them what they now are. It has washed, and 
justified, and sanctified, and brought them to glory. 
And to the same glory, O Christian, it is bringing 
thee ! And canst thou, then, sleep, canst thou be 
slothful, canst thou complain of the difficulties which 
attend, of the obstacles which oppose, thy ascent to 
such glory and felicity as this ? O let gratitude, let 
duty, let shame, if nothing else, forbid ! Lift up, ye 
embryo angels, lift up the heads which hang down, 
and let the drooping spirit revive ! Read, hear, 
meditate with prayer, deny yourselves, mortify sin 
but a little longer, and you shall mount up, not on 
eagles' but on angels' wings, and know what is meant 
by being made equal to resplendent intelligences ! " 

The Pangs of Remorse in Eternity. 

" The gnawing worm of which our Saviour speaks 
includes the consciences of sinners. The sufferings 
inflicted by conscience will be even more painful than 
those which are occasioned by the sinner's passions ; 



Selections from his Works. 209 

for terrible as are the gnawings of passion, those of 
conscience are still more so. Her scourge draws 
blood at every stroke. Even in this world she has 
drawn many, as she did Judas, to despair, madness, 
and suicide. But her loudest rebukes, her keenest 
reproaches here, are mere whispers compared with 
the thundering voice in which she will speak here- 
after. Here she speaks only at intervals. There 
she will speak without intermission. Here the sin- 
ner has various ways of stifling her reproaches or 
diverting his attention from them. He may rush 
into scenes of business or amusement ; he may silence 
her with sophistical arguments and excuses, or with 
promises of future amendment ; and, when all other 
means fail, he may drown her for a season in the in- 
toxicating bowl, as too many, alas ! madly do. But 
there, he will have no means of silencing, or escaping 
from, her reproaches for a moment. Here she knows 
comparatively little of God, of duty, or of sin, and 
therefore often suffers the sinner to escape when she 
ought to scourge him. But there she will see every 
thing in the clear light of eternity, and in conse- 
quence, instead of a whip of small cords, will chastise 
the sinner as with a scourge of scorpions. There 
the sinner will clearly see what a God he has offend- 
ed, what a Saviour he has neglected, what a heaven 
he has lost, and into what a hell he has plunged him- 
self. All the sins which he has committed, with all 
their aggravations and consequences ; all the Sab- 
baths he enjoyed, the sermons which he heard, the 
warnings and invitations which he slighted, the 
opportunities which he misimproved, the serious im- 
pressions which he banished, will be set in order 

14 



210 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

before him and overwhelm him with mountains of 
conscious guilt. And O, the keen, unutterable pangs 
of remorse, the bitter self-reproaches, the unavailing 
regrets, the fruitless wishes that he had pursued a 
different course, which will be thus excited in his 
breast ! The word remorse is derived from a Latin 
word which signifies to gnaw again or to gnaw re- 
peatedly ; and surely no term can more properly 
describe the sufferings which are inflicted by an ac- 
cusing conscience. Well, then, may such a con- 
science, when its now sleeping energies shall be 
wakened by the light of eternity, be compared to a 
gnawing worm. The heathen made use of a similar 
figure to describe it. They represented a wicked 
man as chained to a rock in hell, where an immortal 
vulture constantly preyed upon his vitals, which grew 
again as fast as they were devoured. Nor is this 
representation at all too strong. Even in this world, 
where conscience is comparatively weak, I have often 
seen the bed, and the whole chamber of the sick man, 
shake under the almost convulsive agonies which her 
lash inflicted. I have been told by persons suffering 
under most painful diseases, that their bodily suffer- 
ings were nothing to the anguish of mind which they 
endured. I have seen a man of robust constitution, 
vigorous health, strong mind, and liberal education, 
tremble like an aspen leaf, and scarcely able to sus- 
tain himself under the pressure of conscious guilt and 
pungent remorse. A man in similar circumstances 
has been known to rise in winter at midnight, and 
run for miles with naked feet over the rough and 
frozen ground, in order that the bodily pain thus 
occasioned might, if possible, divert his attention for 



Selections from his Works. 211 

a time from the far more intolerable anguish of his 
mind. And a dying infidel has been known to ex- 
claim, Surely there is a God, for nothing less than 
omnipotence could inflict the pangs which I now 
feel ! What, then, must be the pangs inflicted by a 
gnawing conscience in eternity ?" 

An Unquenchable Fire. 

" Our Saviour speaks not only of the gnawing 
worm, but of an unquenchable fire. What reference 
this may have to the corporeal sufferings of the 
wicked I shall not pretend to decide, but it appears 
evident, from other passages, that so far as the soul 
is concerned it refers to a keen and constant sense 
of God's presence and righteous displeasure. He 
says of himself, ' I am a consuming fire ; and a fire 
is kindled in mine anger, which shall burn even to 
the lowest hell/ These expressions evidently inti- 
mate that a view of his perfections and constant 
presence, combined with a sense of his displeasure, 
will affect the soul as fire does the body, withering 
its strength and drying up its spirits. Some of you 
have formerly known a little of this ; and you know, 
or at least will easily conceive, that no fire can tor- 
ture the body more keenly than a sense of God's dis- 
pleasure does the soul. But to those of you who 
know nothing of this experimentally, it will be more 
difficult to convey any clear apprehension of this 
subject. The following supposition may perhaps 
assist in doing it. Suppose that when Washington 
was the commander of our armies you had been a 
soldier under him, and had been detected in a plot 
to betray your country. Suppose yourself to be 



212 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

brought before him, surrounded by the whole army, 
and compelled by some means to fix your eyes 
steadily several hours on his, encountering during 
the whole time his stern, indignant, and withering 
glances. Would you not soon have found your situa- 
tion intolerably painful? Would not his glance seem 
to thrill through your soul, and almost scorch it like 
fire or blast it like lightning ? What, then, must it 
be to see yourselves surrounded by a just and holy 
God, to meet his heart-searching, heart-withering 
eye, wherever you turn, fixed full upon you ; to see 
the Author of your being, the Sovereign of the 
universe, the great, the glorious, the majestic, the 
omnipotent, the infinite Jehovah regarding you with 
severe displeasure ; to see his anger burning against 
you like fire ! O, this will be indeed a fire to the 
soul ! a fire which will be felt in all its faculties, and 
fill them to the brim with anguish — anguish as much 
greater than any which could be occasioned by ma- 
terial fire as the Creator is superior to his creatures. 
It is, then, O it is a fearful thing to fall into the 
hands of the living God ; that God who is a consum- 
ing fire to the workers of iniquity!" 

Objections to Future Punishment Answered. 

"The incarnation of the Son of God, the tears 
which he shed for sinners, the blood which he poured 
out for sinners, the joy which angels feel when one 
sinner repents, and the unutterable anxiety which 
inspired men felt for the conversion of sinners — all 
conspire to prove that the fate of those who die 
without repentance, without conversion, must be in- 
conceivably dreadful. Will you then say, such a 



Selections from his Works. 213 

punishment cannot be just ? It is impossible that I 
should deserve it? But remember, that you know 
nothing of your sins, or of what sin deserves. Were 
you properly acquainted with your own sinfulness, 
you would feel convinced that it is just. All true 
penitents feel and acknowledge that it would have 
been perfectly just to inflict this punishment upon 
them. Were not you impenitent you would feel the 
same. Besides, this punishment, dreadful as it is, is 
nothing more than the natural, necessary conse- 
quence of persisting in sin. The corroding passions, 
the remorse of conscience, and the displeasure of 
God, which will constitute the misery of sinners, are 
all the results of sin. Every sinner has the seeds of 
hell already sown in his breast. The sparks which 
are to kindle the flames of hell are already glowing 
within him. Christ now offers to extinguish these 
sparks. He shed his blood to quench them. He 
offers to pour out his Spirit as water to quench 
them. But sinners will not accept his offer. They 
rather fan the sparks, and add fuel to the fire. How 
then can they justly complain, when the fire shall 
break out into an unquenchable conflagration and 
burn forever ! As well might a man who should 
put vipers into his bosom complain of God because 
they stung him. As well might a man who has 
kindled a fire and thrown himself into it complain of 
God because the flames scorched him. But I can 
spend no more time in answering objections, or in 
defending the justice of God against the complaints 
of his creatures. I cannot stand here coolly arguing 
and reasoning while I see the pit of destruction, as it 
were, open before me, and more than half my hearers 



214 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

apparently rushing into it. I feel impelled rather to 
fly, and throw myself before you in the fatal path, to 
grasp your hands, to cling to your feet, to make even 
convulsive efforts to arrest your progress, and pluck 
you as brands out of the burning. My careless hear- 
ers, my people, my flock, death, perdition, the never- 
dying worm, the unquenchable fire, are before you ! 
Your path leads directly into them ! Will you not, 
then, hear your friend, your shepherd ? Will you not 
stop and listen, at least for a moment ? Will you, O 
will you, refuse to believe that there is a hell, till you 
find yourselves in the midst of it ? O be convinced, 
I conjure you, be convinced by some less fatal proof 
than this ! Yet how can I convince you ? How can 
I stop you ? My arm is powerless ; yet I cannot let 
you go. I could shed tears of blood over you would 
it avail. Gladly, most gladly, would I die here on 
the spot, without leaving this sacred desk, could my 
death be the means of turning you from this fatal 
course. But what folly is this, to talk of laying down 
my worthless life to save you ! Why, my friends, the 
Son of God died to save you — died in agonies — died 
on the cross ; and surely that doom cannot but be 
terrible, to open a way of escape from which he did 
all this. And it is dreadful. The abyss into which 
you are falling is as deep as the heaven from which 
he descended is high. And will you then rush into 
it, while he stands ready to save you ? Shall he, as 
it respects you, die in vain ? Will you receive the 
grace of God in vain ? Shall those eyes which now 
see the light of the Sabbath, glare and wither in 
eternal burning? Shall those souls, which might 
be filled with the happiness of heaven, writhe and 



Selections from his Works. 215 

agonize forever under the gnawings of the immortal 
worm ? Shall I, must I, hereafter see some who are 
dear to me, for whom I have labored and prayed and 
wept, weltering in the billows of despair, and learn- 
ing, by experience, how far the description comes 
short of the terrible reality ? But I cannot proceed. 
The thought unmans me. I can only point to the 
cross of Christ, and say, There is salvation, there is 
blood, which, if applied, will quench the fires that are 
already kindling in your breasts. There is deliver- 
ance from the wrath which is to come." 

Benefits of the Universal Spread of Christ's Kingdom. 

" Let righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy 
Ghost universally prevail, and sin and misery will be 
banished from the world. By righteousness, is here 
intended a temper and conduct conformable to our 
Saviour's rule of equity — 'Whatsoever ye would that 
men should do to you, do ye even so to them/ By 
peace is intended peace with God, peace of con- 
science, and peace with our fellow-creatures. By joy 
in the Holy Ghost is intended those divine consola- 
tions which God imparts to his people, and which 
often cause them to rejoice, as the apostle expresses 
it, with a joy unspeakable and full of glory. 

"Now were these things universally prevalent, 
what evil could remain to infest the world ? Uni- 
versal righteousness would banish all those evils 
which spring from fraud, injustice, and oppression ; 
all the crimes which now disturb the peace of society ; 
all causes of contention between nations and individ- 
uals. Peace with God would deliver mankind from 
the heavy judgments and calamities with which he is 



216 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

now constrained to afflict them on account of their 
opposition to his authority, and from all the unhap- 
piness occasioned by want of resignation, by anxiety, 
and discontent. Peace of conscience would entirely 
free them from that guilty fear, remorse, and dread 
of death which now often embitter their choicest 
comforts. Peace with each other would destroy at 
once the innumerable evils which arise from public 
and private wars, disputes, and dissensions, while the 
consolations of the Holy Spirit would fill them with 
that peace which passeth all understanding, and give 
them, while on earth, a continual foretaste of the joys 
of heaven, toward which they will be constantly ad- 
vancing, and at which they would at length arrive, 
there to live and reign throughout eternity with Him 
in whose presence is fullness of joy, and at whose 
right hand are pleasures for evermore. Such are the 
benefits which would result to mankind from the 
universal spread of Christ's kingdom — such the glori- 
ous effects which it naturally tends to produce." 

" For in Him Dwelleth all the Fullness of the Godhead 

Bodily!' 

"The original word here rendered fullness, signi- 
fies that by which any thing is filled, completed, or 
made perfect. Thus when it is said, 'The earth is 
the Lord's, and the fullness thereof/ by the fullness 
of the earth is evidently meant all those things with 
which the earth is filled, or every thing which it con- 
tains. So by the fullness of the Godhead is meant, 
all that the Godhead contains, all the natural and 
moral attributes of Deity ; every thing, in short, 
which renders the divine nature perfect and com- 



Selections from his Works. 217 

plete. This phrase, then, includes in its import the 
whole deity or divinity, with its attributes of infinity, 
eternity, immutability, omnipotence, omniscience, 
omnipresence, holiness, justice, goodness, mercy, 
faithfulness, and truth. Should it be thought that 
the word fullness does not necessarily mean so much 
as this, yet it must, I think, be allowed that all the 
fullness of the Godhead cannot mean any thing less ; 
for if any one perfection or attribute of divinity be 
taken away all the fullness of the Godhead would not 
remain. There would be something wanting. The 
divine nature would not be full ; or in other words, 
perfect and complete. Wherever, then, all the full- 
ness of the Godhead dwells, there every natural and 
moral attribute of divinity will be found. 

" Let us next inquire what is meant by the asser- 
tion that all this fullness dwells in Christ. There 
are, in the original, two words which, in our transla- 
tion, are rendered to dwell. The first literally signi- 
fies to reside, as in a tent or tabernacle, and is used to 
denote a temporary residence. This word is used by 
St. John when he says, ' The Word was made flesh, 
and dwelt among us ; ' literally, resided among us, as 
in a. tabernacle or temporary habitation. The other 
word signifies to dwell as in a house, or fixed habita- 
tion, and is always used to signify a more permanent 
residence ; because a house is permanent compared 
with a tent. Now it is the latter word, the word that 
signifies a permanent residence, which is used in our 
text. The import of the assertion which it contains, 
then, is this : All the fullness of the Godhead re- 
sides in Jesus Christ, as in its permanent or fixed 
habitation." 



218 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

Habitually at Ease in Zion. 

" If there is any truth in the Scriptures it is cer- 
tain that all who are habitually at ease in Zion know 
nothing of true religion. They are either careless 
sinners or self-deluded hypocrites. The pious man, 
the true Christian, is described by the inspired 
writers as one who mourns for sin, who is engaged 
in a spiritual warfare, who is fighting the good fight 
of faith, who crucifies the flesh with its affections and 
lusts, who is running the Christian race, who is en- 
gaged in subduing and mortifying his sinful propen- 
sities, who denies himself, takes up his cross daily 
and follows Christ ; who, as a pilgrim, a stranger, a 
traveler, is seeking another and better country ; one 
who works out his own salvation with fear and trem- 
bling. Now is it possible that a man who is doing 
all this can be at ease, in the sense of our text ? A 
soldier on the field of battle at ease ! a man running 
a race at ease ! a traveler, toiling up a steep ascent, 
bearing the cross, at ease ! a man crucifying sinful 
propensities, dear as a right hand or right eye, at 
ease ! a man working out his salvation with fear and 
trembling at ease ! a man who hates and mourns for 
sin, loves God, and feels concerned for his perishing 
fellow-creatures, at ease in a world lying in wicked- 
ness, where God is dishonored, where Christ is neg- 
lected, where immortal souls are perishing by millions ; 
where there is so much to be done, so much to be 
suffered, so much to be guarded against and resisted ; 
where death stands at the door, ready every moment 
to summon him to his great account ! My friends, 
it is impossible. No Christian can be habitually 



Selections from his Works. 219 

easy, careless, and indolent in such a situation as 
this. He may, perhaps, slumber for a moment, but 
even then he is not at ease." 

The Alarm Sounded. 

"Like the inhabitants of the old world, you are 
eating and drinking, and planting and building, and 
marrying and giving in marriage, while death, like 
the flood, is constantly approaching and threatening 
to sweep you away with resistless violence to the 
judgment-seat. God hearkens and hears, but you 
speak not aright. Almost no one repents of his 
wickedness, saying, What have I done ? This in- 
sensibility must be removed, this fatal peace de- 
stroyed. In God's name, then, I must sound an 
alarm. In his name, and as his watchman, who must 
answer for your souls if they perish through my neg- 
lect, I set the war-trumpet of Jehovah to my lips, and 
cry, Woe, woe, woe, to you that are at ease in Zion ! 
Thus saith Jehovah, the great, the mighty, the ter- 
rible God, Tremble ye that are at ease ; rise up and 
be troubled, ye careless ones, and listen to my voice ; 
for while ye say Peace and safety, sudden destruction 
cometh upon you, and ye shall not escape. Your 
peace is delusive ; your ease is full of danger ; it is 
the stagnant calm which precedes the hurricane and 
the earthquake ; it is the ease which the diseased 
patient feels when raging inflammation terminates in 
gangrene — the symptom, the immediate forerunner 
of death. No further evidence of your guilt and 
danger is requisite ; nothing more is necessary to 
secure your condemnation than the very ease which 
you feel and the false confidence which confirms it. 



220 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

It is your not fearing the woe which brings the woe 
upon you. It is your very insensibility to your dan- 
ger which proves your danger to be great ; it is your 
unconcern for your sins which proves that they have 
never been pardoned." 

Fearful Consequences of Not Punishing Sin, 

" Inspiration teaches us that the happiness of 
heaven consists in knowing, loving, serving, and 
praising God. It is his glory, we are told, which 
constitutes the light of the heavenly world above. 
But there would be no happiness in knowing, serv- 
ing, or praising him, should he lose the perfections 
which compose and adorn his moral character. Take 
away his truth, his justice, his holiness, and all the 
glory which illuminates heaven would vanish into 
night. But should God renounce his determination 
to punish sin, he would stain all these perfections ; 
nay, he would cease from that moment to possess 
them. He would no longer be true ; for he has not 
only said but sworn, sworn by himself, that sinners 
shall not go unpunished. Where, then, would be his 
truth should they escape ? He would no longer be 
holy ; for holiness implies hatred or opposition to 
sin. He would no longer be just ; for justice con- 
sists in executing his law, and rewarding every one 
according to his works. In short, he would become 
altogether such an one as ourselves. Who then could 
find everlasting happiness in seeing and praising 
through eternity such a being as this ? a being with- 
out truth, or holiness, or justice. Who could either 
respect or love him ? How instantaneously would 
the praises of heaven cease ! How would their gold- 



Selections from his Works. 221 

en harps drop from the hands of its now happy in- 
habitants ; and how would angels be compelled to 
stop in the midst of their unfinished song, i Just and 
true are all thy ways, O King of saints ! ' The sun 
of the moral world would be forever eclipsed, and a 
black, endless night would shroud the universe. But 
this is not all. Were sin unrestrained, unpunished, 
it would soon scale heaven, as it has once done al- 
ready in the case of the apostate angels ; and there 
reign and rage with immortal strength through eter- 
nity, repeating in endless succession, and with in- 
creased aggravation, the enormities which it has 
already perpetrated on earth. We may add, that, 
after God had once surrendered his truth, his justice, 
and holiness, and laid aside the reins of govern- 
ment, he could never more resume them. Nor could 
he ever give laws, or make promises to any other 
world, or any other race of creatures, which would be 
worthy of the least regard. It would be instantly 
and properly said, He has once violated his word and 
his oath, and he may do it again. He has once 
shown himself fickle, unjust, and unholy, and what 
security can we have that he will not do it again. 
Should he silence these clamors by an exertion of 
his almighty power, he might indeed have slaves to 
cringe before him, but he could never have affec- 
tionate subjects who would serve him with cheer- 
fulness and confidence ; nor could he. after once 
allowing sin to go unpunished, ever punish it again, 
without exposing himself to the charge of partiality 
and injustice." 



222 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

Superior Advantages of the Christian Dispensation. 

"The very rolls which Jeremiah wrote by God's 
command, in which he expresses so clearly his in- 
dignation against sin, and which it was so criminal 
in the king of Judah and his princes to disregard — 
forms a part of this volume. Nor is this all. The 
same God who spoke to them by his prophet, has, in 
these latter ages, spoken to you by his Son. By him 
he has revealed himself to us in the most interesting 
attitudes ; he has addressed us in the most impress- 
ive language; he has addressed us as the God and 
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ ; in the attitude of 
taking from his bosom his only begotten and well- 
beloved Son, that he might give him up for us all, to 
bear our sins on the cross. In the instructions, in 
the Gospel of that Son, he has set before us denun- 
ciations of vengeance far more tremendous — invita- 
tions and offers of mercy far more tender — proofs of 
his goodness far more affecting — motives to love and 
obedience far more powerful — than were ever ex- 
hibited to his ancient people. He has brought life 
and immortality more clearly to light ; he has rent 
asunder the vail which concealed the eternal world 
from the view of mortals ; he has made the glories 
of heaven to blaze down upon our eyes ; he has 
caused the unquenchable flames of hell to flash up 
before our faces ; he has caused the groans of the 
latter, the songs of the former, the blast of the last 
trumpet, and the sentence which the final Judge will 
pronounce upon the righteous and upon the wicked, 
to resound in our ears. In fine, all that he has done, 
all that he designs to do, he has recorded in the 



Selections from his Works. 223 

Scriptures. He has dictated them by his own Spirit ; 
he has subscribed them with his own name ; he has 
stamped upon them the broad seal of heaven ; he has 
authenticated them by fulfilling many of the prophe- 
cies which they contain, and, addressing them to us 
as it were by name, has caused them to drop from 
heaven into our hands." 

Despair: Its Nature and Effects, 

"The ancient divines were accustomed to call 
despair one of the seven deadly sins. That it well 
deserves this character is evident from its nature and 
effects. It is directly contrary to the will of God. 
He, we are told, taketh pleasure in them that fear 
him, and hope in his mercy. He must, therefore, be 
displeased with them that refuse to do this. It is 
also a great insult to the character of God. It calls 
in question the truth of his word ; nay, it gives him 
the lie ; for he has told us that whosoever cometh to 
him he will in nowise cast out. But the language 
of despair is, He will cast me out, though I should 
come to him. It calls in question, or rather denies, 
the greatness of his mercy. He has told us that his 
mercy is infinite ; that it is from everlasting to ever- 
lasting ; but the language of despair is, My sins are 
beyond the reach of God's mercy, and therefore it is 
not infinite. It also limits the power of God. He 
has said, Is any thing too hard for me ? With God 
nothing is impossible. But despair says, There are 
some things which are too hard for God ; some things 
which it is impossible for him to perform. It is im- 
possible that he should renew my heart, subdue my 
will, and make me fit for heaven. Thus despair limits 



224 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

or denies all God's perfections, and, of consequence, 
greatly insults and provokes him. Despair is also 
contrary to the Spirit of God. The three principal 
graces of the Spirit are faith, hope, and love. But 
despair is opposed to them all. That it is opposed 
to faith in God's promises, we have already seen ; 
that it is opposed to hope, is evident from its very 
nature ; and a little reflection will convince us that 
it is equally inconsistent with love. To sum up all 
in one word, despair includes in itself the very 
essence both of impenitence and unbelief. It con- 
tains in itself the essence of impenitence, for it seals 
up the heart in a sullen, obstinate, unyielding frame, 
so that those who are under its influence cannot 
breathe one penitential sigh, or shed a single peni- 
tential tear. This effect it has on the devils. This 
effect it will produce in all the wicked at the judg- 
ment-day. Hence it is directly opposed to that 
broken heart and contrite spirit in which true re- 
pentance essentially consists. It also contains in it- 
self the very essence of unbelief, for it shuts up the 
heart against all the promises of the Gospel, against 
all the invitations of Christ, against all the revela- 
tions which God has made of mercy, and represents 
him as a severe, inexorable, arbitrary tyrant, whom it 
is vain to endeavor to please. But unbelief and 
impenitence are every-where represented as sins ex- 
ceedingly great and provoking to God. How offen- 
sive, how provoking, then, must be that despair 
which includes in itself the essence of both these 
aggravated sins ! " 



Selections from his Works. 225 

God Listening to the Afflicted Penitent. 

" ' I have surely/ says God, ' heard Ephraim be- 
moaning himself/ So he does still. As an affec- 
tionate parent, after confining a stubborn child to a 
solitary apartment, sometimes stands at the door 
without, secretly listening to his complaints, that he 
may release him on the first symptom of submission, 
so when God puts us into the prison of affliction he 
invisibly, but attentively, listens to catch the first 
penitential sigh, and hear the first breathings of 
prayer which escape us ; and no music, not even the 
halleluias of angels, is more pleasing to his ears than 
are these cries and complaints of a broken heart ; 
nor can any thing more quickly or more powerful- 
ly excite his compassion. Agreeably he represents 
himself as strongly affected by the complaints of 
Ephraim : ' My bowels/ says he, [ are troubled for 
him/ My friends, what astonishing compassion and 
love is this, that the infinite, eternal Jehovah should 
represent himself as troubled and grieved for the 
sufferings of penitent sinners under those afflictions 
which their sins had brought upon them ! Certainly 
nothing in heaven or earth is so wonderful as this ; 
and if this language does not affect us and break our 
hearts, nothing can do it." 

All Classes Invited to the Gospel Feast. 

" Our Creator, our God, has made a great feast, a 
marriage feast for his Son ; a feast for the entertain- 
ment of sinners ; a feast in which all his inexhaust- 
ible stores, all the celestial dainties which infinite 

wisdom could devise, which almighty power could 

15 



226 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

create, are set forth. To this feast you are now in- 
vited. No tickets of admission are necessary. The 
Master of the feast stands at the door to receive you, 
declaring that not one who comes shall be cast out ; 
and as his servant, sent forth for this very purpose, 
sent especially to you, I now invite you to come. I 
invite you, children, for there is a place for you. 
Leave your toys and follies, then, and come to Christ. 
I invite you who are young, for your presence is espe- 
cially desired. Leave your sinful amusements and 
companions, then, and come to the Saviour. I invite 
you who are in the meridian of life. To you, O men, 
I call, and my voice is to the sons of men. Particularly 
do I invite you who are parents to come, and to bring 
your children with you to the Saviour's feast. I invite 
you who are aged to come, and receive from Christ 
a crown of glory, which your gray hairs will be if you 
are found in the way of righteousness. I invite you 
to come, ye poor, and Christ will make you rich in 
faith and heirs of his kingdom. I invite you to come 
who are rich, and bring your wealth to Christ, and 
he will give you durable riches and righteousness. I 
invite you who are ignorant to come, and Christ will 
impart to you his treasures of wisdom and knowledge. 
I invite you who possess human learning to come, 
and Christ will baptize your knowledge, and teach 
you to employ it in the most advantageous manner. 
I invite you who are afflicted to come, for my God is 
the God of all consolation, and my Master can be 
touched with the feeling of your infirmities. I invite 
you who feel yourself to be the greatest of sinners to 
come, for you will find many there whose sins once 
equaled your own, now washed and made white in 



Selections from his Works. 227 

the blood of the Lamb. I invite you who have long 
despised, and who still despise this invitation, to 
come, for Christ's language is, Hearken to me, ye 
stout-hearted and far from righteousness. And if 
there be any one in this assembly who thinks himself 
overlooked — if there be one who has not yet felt that 
this invitation is addressed to him — I now present it 
to that person, particularly, and invite him to come." 

Moral Sublimity of Christ's Invitations. 

" ' Look unto me, and be ye saved, all ye ends of 
the earth/ ' If any man thirst, let him come unto 
me and drink.' ' Whosoever will, let him come, and 
him that cometh I will in nowise cast out/ And 
who is he that dares utter such language as this ? 
Who dares thus stand in the midst of the world, of 
such a world as this, a thirsty, perishing world, and 
invite all, all its dying inhabitants without exception, 
to come to him and drink the waters of life and sal- 
vation ? Can he have room sufficient for such an 
innumerable multitude ? Has he not reason to fear 
that his treasures will be exhausted ? Does he know 
what he says ? Yes, my friends, he does know what 
he says ; and he may well say it, for in him dwells 
all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. He has 
enough, and more than enough, for ten thousand 
such worlds as this. And, my hearers, this is saying 
much ; for reflect a moment how much is necessary 
to supply the wants of a single immortal soul through 
time and through eternity. Think how many souls 
there are, have been, and shall be, in the world. 
Think of the innumerable criminals — criminals of 
the most abandoned kind — of the murderers, the 



228 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

robbers, the conquerors, the blasphemers, the adul- 
terers, the harlots, the impious, hardened wretches 
who neither fear God nor regard man, that have 
been, and still are, to be found among mankind. 
What an ocean of mercy is necessary to wash away 
their sins, to make the deep crimson white as snow ! 
What an omnipotence of grace is requisite to fit such 
wretches for admission into a heaven of spotless 
purity, and make them holy as God ! Yet all such 
Christ invites, all such he is able to save, all such he 
would save, would they come to him. Who, then, 
can describe, who can conceive, the ten thousandth 
part of that grace and mercy which must be in 
Christ ; or of the love which renders him thus willing 
to scatter that grace and mercy round him upon the 
worthless and undeserving ? Is there not something 
inexpressibly grand, sublime, and affecting in the 
idea of a being whose fullness enables him, whose 
generosity prompts him, to throw wide open the door 
of his heart, and invite a dying world to enter in, and 
drink and be satisfied, and live forever ; — of a being 
from whom flows light, holiness, and happiness suffi- 
cient to fill to overflowing all that come to him, be 
their numbers ever so many, their sins and wants and 
miseries ever so great ; — of a being, of whose fullness 
myriads of immortal beings may drink through a 
whole eternity without exhausting, or even diminish- 
ing, it in the smallest degree ? " 

Merely Human Instrumentalities Ineffectual 

"As the tempest, the earthquake, and the fire 
roused the prophet, and prepared him to attend to 
what God would say to him, so the works and dis- 



Selections from his Works. 229 

pensations of Providence are used to rouse thought- 
less sinners, and awaken their attention to the still, 
small voice of Jehovah. But they communicate no 
specific instruction or reproof. They do not tell the 
sinner in what respect he has done wrong, nor what 
it is to do right. They may amaze him, they may 
frighten him, they may plunge him into distress and 
despondency. But they leave him there. After they 
have done their utmost, the sinner is still left without 
God in the world, and without knowledge of the way 
in which God may be found. The same may be said 
of other means. Ministers may give voice and utter- 
ance to the Bible, which is the word of God. Like 
James and John, they may be sons of thunder to im- 
penitent sinners. They may pour forth a tempest 
of impassioned, eloquent declamation. They may 
proclaim all the terrors of the Lord ; represent the 
earth as quaking and trembling under the footsteps 
of Jehovah ; flash around them the lightnings of 
Sinai ; borrow, as it were, the trump of the archangel, 
and summon the living and the dead to the bar of 
God ; kindle before their hearers the conflagration 
of the last day and the fires of eternity, and show 
them the Judge descending, the heavens departing 
as a scroll, the elements melting, the earth with its 
works consuming, and all nature struggling in the 
agonies of dissolution ; — and still God may not be 
there ; his voice may not be heard either in the 
tempest, the earthquake, or the fire ; and if so, the 
preacher will have labored but in vain ; his hearers, 
though they may for the moment be affected, will 
receive no permanent salutary impressions. Nothing 
effectual can be done unless God be there, unless he 



230 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

speaks with his still, small voice. By this still, small 
voice we mean the voice of God's Spirit ; the voice 
which speaks not only to man but in man ; the voice, 
which in stillness, and silence, whispers to the ear 
of the soul, and presses upon the conscience those 
great, eternal truths, a knowledge and belief of which 
is connected with salvation. ,, 

How to Prolong the Visits of the Saviour. 

" If we would prolong the Saviour's gracious visits, 
we must furnish him with opportunities of doing 
good, and keep him constantly employed in this 
blessed work. We must bring to him ourselves, our 
children, our friends and acquaintances, to be par- 
doned, instructed, sanctified, and saved. We must 
not leave him without employment for a single day ; 
and if he begins to withdraw, we must lay the sick, 
the dying, and the dead across his path ; for nothing 
will stop his departure like such an obstacle as this. 
Omnipotent as he is, he cannot step over a perishing 
soul laid by faith across his way. As unbelief can 
paralyze his arm, so faith can constrain him to work, 
and with gentle, but irresistible force, arrest his 
progress, even when he has begun to withdraw." 

Christ* s Absence from the Church. 

" Christ is constituted head over all things to his 
Church, and therefore the effects which a Church 
experiences on his departure from it are similar to 
those which would result to a human body from the 
loss of its head. For instance, the head is the seat 
of intelligence, the palace, the presence-chamber of 
the soul, where she holds her court, and from whence 



Selections from his Works. 231 

she issues forth her counsels and commands to the 
members of the body. Take away the head, and the 
tongue loses its eloquence, the right hand its cun- 
ning, and the feet their director. It is the same in 
the body of which Christ is the head. It has no 
wisdom, nor knowledge, nor intelligence, without 
him. Its members know not what to do ; they 
have, in a spiritual sense, neither eyes nor ears, with- 
out their head ; and, therefore, infallibly wander, 
and stumble, and fall. We have no sufficiency of 
ourselves. 

" The head is the bond of union. Take away the 
head from a human body, and the members soon 
separate and molder into dust. So Christ is the only 
bond of union to his members. While he remains 
with them they are firmly united, but when he de- 
parts the connecting tie is broken ; jealousies, dis- 
sensions, and divisions arise ; the Church becomes 
like a rope of sand ; its members are easily separated 
and split into parties, and every one's heart, and 
hand, and tongue, is turned against his brother. 

" The head is necessary to the growth of the body. 
Without the head the body can receive no nourish- 
ment, and consequently no strength ; its growth is 
immediately suspended. It is the same with the 
body of Christ. His presence always causes its in- 
crease both in numbers and in graces. But when he 
departs its growth ceases. Spiritual nourishment is 
no longer received, and the whole body declines. 

"The head is the seat of life and sensation. Take 
away the head and death ensues. The body becomes 
insensible as the clod of earth from which it was 
formed. It is the same with the Church. Take 



232 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

away Christ, its head, its life, and it dies. Nothing 
remains but a lifeless, insensible, putrefying carcass, 
fit only to produce and become food for worms. 
Well, therefore, might the Saviour say to his dis- 
ciples, ' Without me ye can do nothing ; ' for as the 
body without the spirit is dead, so the Church with- 
out Christ is also dead ; and nothing but his return 
can restore it to life." 

The Believer s Foretastes of Heaven. 

"The apostle, after informing us 'that eye hath 
not seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man con- 
ceived of those things which God has prepared for 
them that love him/ adds, 'but God hath revealed 
them unto us by his Spirit/ Of the truth of this 
assertion every Christian, who walks in the fear of 
God, is convinced by happy experience. Like the 
blessed inhabitants of heaven, such persons are en- 
abled by the Holy Spirit to enjoy fellowship with the 
Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ ; to participate 
in the joy that is felt in heaven when sinners repent ; 
and to unite with the spirits of the just made perfect 
in ascribing blessing, and glory, and power, unto God 
and the Lamb. At intervals, which return more or 
less frequently in proportion to their diligence, zeal, 
and fidelity, God is pleased to grant them still greater 
consolation, to lift upon them the light of his counte- 
nance, and cause them to rejoice in his salvation. 
He sheds abroad his love in their hearts, makes them 
to know the great love wherewith he has loved them, 
shines in upon their souls with the pure, dazzling, 
transforming beams of celestial mercy, truth, and 
grace ; displays to their enraptured view the ineffable 



Selections from his Works. 233 

beauties and glories of Him who is the chief among 
ten thousand, and enables them in some measure to 
comprehend the lengths and breadths, the heights 
and depths, of that love of Christ which passeth 
knowledge. While the happy Christian, in these 
bright, enraptured moments, sinks lower and lower 
in self-abasement and humility, the Spirit of God, 
stooping from his blessed abode, raises him, as it 
were, on his celestial wings, and places him before 
the open door of heaven, and enables him to look in 
and contemplate the great I AM, the Ancient of 
days, enthroned with the Son of his love, the bright- 
ness of his glory. He contemplates, he wonders, he 
admires, he loves, he adores. Absorbed in the rav- 
ishing, the ecstatic contemplation of uncreated love- 
liness, glory, and beauty, he forgets the world, he 
forgets himself, he almost forgets that he exists. His 
whole soul goes forth in one intense flame of admira- 
tion, love, and desire, and he longs to plunge into 
the boundless ocean of perfection which opens to his 
view, and to be wholly swallowed and lost in God. 
With an energy and activity of soul unknown before, 
he roams and ranges through this infinite ocean of 
existence and happiness, of perfection and glory, of 
power and wisdom, of light and love, where he can 
find neither bottom nor shore. His soul dilates itself 
beyond its ordinary capacity, and expands to receive 
the tide of felicity which fills and overwhelms it. No 
language can do justice to his feelings, for his joys 
are unspeakable ; but with an emphasis, a meaning, 
an energy, which God only could excite, and which 
God alone can comprehend, he exclaims in broken 
accents, My Father and my God ! Thus by the 



234 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

agency of the Spirit is he filled with all the fullness 
of God, and rejoices with joy unspeakable and full of 
glory, till his wise and compassionate Father, in con- 
descension to the weakness of his almost expiring 
child, graciously draws a vail over glories too dazzling 
for mortal eyes long to sustain ; leaving him still, 
however, in the enjoyment of that peace of God which 
passeth all understanding. Such, my friends, are 
the joys which the Spirit of God occasionally imparts 
to those who walk in his fear ; or rather, such is the 
exceedingly imperfect description of them which we 
are able to give." 

The Sufferings of Christ a Proof of his Love. 

" Other things being equal, we consider that love 
as the greatest which induces a willingness to suffer 
the greatest degree of pain. And this is just reason- 
ing ; for self-love makes us unwilling to suffer. Of 
course, when we are willing to suffer for the sake of 
another, it proves that we love him as we love our- 
selves ; nay, that our love for him is sufficiently 
strong to counteract the influence of self-love. Let 
us, then, inquire what Christ's love for us led him to 
suffer for our sakes. But here we labor under a 
difficulty ; a difficulty arising from our ignorance. 
We know but little even of the bodily sufferings 
which he endured for our salvation. We know, 
indeed, that he was scourged till the naked bones 
appeared through his mangled flesh ; that he was 
buffeted, or beaten upon the face ; that his temples 
were pierced with thorns ; that he was fastened to 
the cross by nails driven through his hands and feet, 
and that, with his whole weight thus suspended, he 



Selections from his Works. 235 

hung for six hours, bleeding, parched with thirst, 
and agonizing in the pangs of death. But though 
we know these facts, we know but little of his bodily 
sufferings. It is one thing to read or hear of what 
he suffered, and quite another thing to form a just 
conception of it. By what effort either of our under- 
standings or of our imaginations are we to conceive 
of tortures which we never felt — to conceive of the 
pangs of crucifixion — to conceive of the agonies in- 
flicted by hanging with the whole weight of the body 
suspended on nails driven through the hands and 
feet — parts of the frame which are, perhaps above 
others, endowed with the most exquisite sensibility. 
One stroke of the scourge, one thorn piercing our 
temples, one of the many repeated blows by which 
the nails were urged home, would probably give us 
more lively ideas of what our Saviour suffered than 
all our efforts can excite. And yet the tortures which 
his body endured were but a part, and incomparably 
the smaller part, of his sufferings. They wrung from 
him no groan, no expression of anguish. But his 
mental sufferings did more. They wrung from him 
not only groans, but great drops of blood. Before he 
was arrested, and while his body was free from pain, 
he was, we are told, in an agony — he exclaimed, * My 
soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death;' and 
his sweat was as great drops of blood falling down to 
the ground. Is it asked, what occasioned this men- 
tal agony ? I answer, it was the curse of the law, 
which, we are told, he bore for us. It was the hand 
of his Father, the hand of Omnipotence, which, as 
the prophet informs us, bruised him and put him to 
grief. The burden of man's guilt which he bore, the 



236 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

weight of divine wrath which we deserved, was what 
crushed him down. He drank the cup which we 
were doomed to drink, that cup into which, an apostle 
tells us, was poured the fierceness of the wrath of 
Almighty God. It was of this he said, ' Father, if it be 
possible, let this cup pass from me.' It was the agonies 
occasioned by drinking this cup which made him cry 
out, ' My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me ? ' 
Now if we cannot conceive the full extent of his 
bodily sufferings, how much less can we conceive of 
the nameless anguish of his soul ? Who, on this side 
everlasting burnings, can conceive what it is to drink 
the fierceness of the wrath of Almighty God, poured 
out without mixture into the cup of his indignation ? 
Yet under the united pressure of all these incon- 
ceivable corporeal and mental agonies he consented 
to die, and it was love, love for us, which induced 
him to consent. Well, then, may we exclaim, while 
standing by his cross, Behold how he loved us !" 

A Striking Illustration. 

" Still more loudly does the professing Christian 
declare that he regards his God and Redeemer as a 
wilderness, when he repairs, in search of happiness, 
to the scenes of worldly pleasure, or to the society of 
worldly-minded men. He then says to them in effect, 
The ways of wisdom are not ways of pleasantness ; 
a religious life is a life of constraint and melancholy ; 
I should die with hunger and thirst did I not occa- 
sionally forsake the wilderness in which I am doomed 
to live, and refresh myself with the fruits on which 
you are feasting. Suppose, my hearers, that while 
Adam resided in Paradise the world had been filled, 



Selections from his Works. 237 

as it now is, with sinful inhabitants. Had he, in 
these circumstances, frequently, or occasionally, for- 
saken^ the garden of God, and wandered out into the 
world to seek happiness in the society or in the pur- 
suits of sinful men, would not his conduct have 
seemed to say, Paradise is a wilderness, a land of 
darkness, in which happiness is not to be found ? I 
am weary of the presence of God, which is there 
manifested, and am constrained to come to you in 
search of pleasures which my place of residence does 
not afford? Just so, when the professed friends of 
God wander from him, and from the path of duty, 
in search of happiness, they practically say, He is 
a wilderness, a land of darkness, in which I find 
nothing pleasant, nothing to allure, nothing which 
satisfies my desires." 

The Oracles of God. 

"That this title is given to the Scriptures with 
perfect truth and propriety no one who acknowledges 
their divine inspiration will, it is presumed, deny. 
They do not, indeed, and it is one of their chief ex- 
cellences that they do not, resemble in all respects 
the heathen oracles. They neither answer, nor pro- 
fess to answer, such questions as were usually pro- 
posed to them. They inform no man what will be 
the duration of his life, nor by what means it will be 
terminated. They will not predict to us the result 
of any particular private or public enterprise. They 
will not aid the politician in devising, nor the soldier 
in executing, schemes for the subjugation of his fel- 
low-creatures. They were never designed to gratify 
a vain curiosity ; much less to subserve the purposes 



238 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

of ambition or avarice ; and this is, probably, one 
reason why many persons never consult them. But 
though they give no answers to such questions as 
these passions suggest, they answer questions in- 
comparably more important, and communicate infor- 
mation infinitely more valuable. If they inform no 
man when or how his life will be terminated, they 
inform every man, who rightly consults them, how 
both its progress and termination may be rendered 
happy. If they inform no man how he may prolong 
his existence in this world, they will inform every 
man how he may secure everlasting life in the world 
to come. If they give no information respecting the 
result of any particular enterprise, they will teach us 
how to conduct all our enterprises in such a manner 
that the final result shall be glory, and honor, and 
immortality. And while they inform individuals how 
they may obtain endless felicity, they will teach na- 
tions how to secure national prosperity. In fine, 
whatever a man's situation and circumstances may 
be, whatever offices or relations he may sustain ; this 
oracle, if consulted in the manner in which God has 
prescribed, will satisfactorily answer every question 
which it is proper for him to ask ; every question, an 
answer to which is necessary either to his present or 
future well being ; for it contains all the information 
which our most wise and benevolent Creator sees it 
best that his human creatures should, at present, 
possess. Indeed, we have reason to believe that 
should he now condescend to visit and converse with 
us in a visible form, he would answer all our inquiries 
by referring us to the Scriptures ; for when our 
Saviour, in whom are hidden all the treasures of 



Selections from his Works. 239 

wisdom and knowledge, resided on earth, he pursued 
this course with respect to such questions as had 
been already answered in the Old Testament. To 
such as proposed any of those questions his usual 
answer was, What saith the Scripture ? What is 
written in the law ? How readest thou ? And if he 
pursued this course while the Scriptures contained the 
Old Testament only, we may presume that he would 
now pursue it exclusively, since the revelation which 
God designed for men is completed by the addition 
of the New. In possessing the Scriptures, then, our 
country possesses every real advantage that would 
result from the establishment of an oracle among us, 
where God should give answers to his worshipers by 
an audible voice, as he formerly did to the Jews. 
Indeed, we possess advantages in some respects far 
greater than would result from such an establish- 
ment ; for wherever the oracle might be placed, it 
would unavoidably be at a distance from a large pro- 
portion of those who wished for its advice ; to con- 
sult it, a long and expensive journey would often be 
necessary ; and, in many cases of frequent occur- 
rence, an answer, thus obtained, would come too late. 
But in the Scriptures we possess an oracle which 
may be brought home to every family and every in- 
dividual ; which may be placed in our habitations, in 
our closets, and consulted daily or hourly, without 
fatigue, expense, or delay ; nay more, which may be 
made the companion of the traveler on his journey 
and of the mariner on his voyage. In this oracle we 
possess all, and much more than all, that was pos- 
sessed by the ancient Church in its urim and thum- 
min, its ephod and its sanctuary. By placing it in 



240 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

our closets, and consulting it aright, we may make 
them to us all that the Holy of Holies was to the 
pious Moses ; a place where God will meet us, con- 
verse with us, answer our inquiries, and accept our 
offerings. In fine, we have in this oracle the very 
mind and heart of our Creator. The thoughts and 
purposes of his mind, and the emotions of his heart, 
lie here in, silence, waiting an opportunity to make 
themselves known. Hence, whenever we open the 
Scriptures, we do in effect open the lips of Jehovah, 
and the words of eternal truth burst at once upon 
our ears ; the counsels of unerring wisdom address 
our understandings and our hearts." 

The Inquirer at the Oracle. 

" It is also true, that in consequence of having been 
familiar from our childhood with much of the infor- 
mation which these oracles impart, we are generally 
far from being sensible how deeply we are indebted 
to them, how great is their value, and how deplor- 
able our situation would be rendered by their loss. 
If we would form just conceptions of these several 
particulars, we must place ourselves, for a moment, 
in the situation of a serious, reflecting inquirer after 
truth, who has reached the meridian of life without 
any knowledge of the Scriptures. Let us suppose 
such a man to have diligently studied himself, his 
fellow-creatures, and the world around him ; and to 
have made use of all the assistance which heathen 
philosophy can afford. Let us suppose that he has 
pursued his inquiries as far as unassisted human 
intellect can go, and that he now finds himself be- 
wildered in a maze of conflicting theories, and en- 



Selections from his Works. 241 

veloped by all that distracting uncertainty, perplexity, 
and anxiety into which the researches of men unen- 
lightened by revelation inevitably plunge them. To 
such a man what would the Scriptures be worth ? 
What would he give for a single hour's opportunity 
of consulting an oracle which should return such an- 
swers to his inquiries as they contain ? Would you 
rightly estimate the information which he might de- 
rive from such an oracle during that short period ? 
See him, then, approach it, and listen while he con- 
sults it. Perplexed by the numberless questions 
which impatiently demand a solution, and agitated 
by an undefinable awe of the invisible, mysterious 
Being whom he is about to address, he scarcely 
knows how, or where, to commence his inquiries. 
At length he hesitatingly and tremblingly asks, ' To 
whom are the heavens above me, the world which I 
inhabit, and the various objects with which it is filled, 
indebted for their existence ?' A mild, but majestic 
voice replies from the oracle, In the beginning, God 
created the heavens, and the earth, and all that is 
therein. Startled by the scarcely expected answer, 
but soon recovering his self-possession, the inquirer 
eagerly exclaims, 'Who is God— what is his nature, 
his character, his attributes ?' God, replies the voice, 
is a spirit : he is from everlasting to everlasting, with- 
out beginning of days or end of years ; and with him 
is no variableness nor shadow of turning; he fills 
heaven and earth ; he searches the hearts and tries 
the reins of the children of men ; he is the only Wise, 
the Almighty, the High, and Holy, and Just One ; he 
is Jehovah, Jehovah God, merciful and gracious, long- 
suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping 

16 



242 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity, transgression, 
and sin ; but one who will by no means clear the 
guilty. A solemn pause ensues. The inquirer's mind 
is overwhelmed. It labors, it sinks, it faints, while 
vainly attempting to grasp the illimitable, incompre- 
hensible Being, now for the first time disclosed to 
its view. But a new and more powerful motive now 
stimulates his inquiries and, with augmented interest 
he asks, ' Does any relation or connection subsist be- 
tween this God and myself?' He is thy Maker, re- 
turns the oracle, the Father of thy spirit, and thy 
Preserver ; he it is who giveth thee richly all things 
to enjoy ; he is thy Sovereign, thy Lawgiver, and 
thy Judge ; in him thou dost live, and move, and 
exist, nor can any one deliver thee out of his hands ; 
and when, at death, thy dust shall return to the earth 
as it was, thy spirit will return to God who gave it. 

* How/ resumes the inquirer, ' will he then receive 
tne?' He will reward thee according to thy works. 

* What are the works/ the inquirer asks, ' which this 
Sovereign requires of me ? ' Thou shalt love the 
Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy 
soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength. 
Every transgression of this law is a sin ; and the 
soul that sinneth shall die. 'Have I sinned?' the 
inquirer tremblingly asks. All, replies the oracle, 
have sinned, and come short of the glory of God. 
The God, in whose hand thy breath is, and whose 
are all thy ways, thou hast not glorified. A new 
sensation, the sensation of conscious guilt, now op- 
presses the inquirer, and with increased anxiety he 
asks, i Is there any way in which the pardon of sin 
may be obtained ? ' The blood of Jesus Christ, replies 



Selections from his Works. 243 

the oracle, cleanseth from all sin. He that confess- 
eth and forsaketh his sins shall find mercy. ' But to 
whom shall I confess them ? ' the inquirer resumes ; 
'where shall I find the God whom I have offended, 
that I may acknowledge my transgressions, and im- 
plore his mercy ? ' He is a God at hand, returns the 
voice ; he is not far from thee ; I, who speak to 
thee, am he. ' God be merciful to me a sinner ! ' ex- 
claims the inquirer, smiting upon his breast, and not 
daring to lift his eyes toward the oracle. 'What, 
Lord, wilt thou have me to do ? ' Believe on the 
Lord Jesus Christ, answers the voice, and thou shalt 
be saved. ' Lord, who is Jesus Christ, that I may 
believe on him?' He is my beloved Son, whom I 
have set forth to be a propitiation through faith in 
his blood ; hear thou him, for there is salvation in 
no other. Such are, probably, some of the questions 
which would be asked by the supposed inquirer ; and 
such are, in substance, the answers which he would 
receive from the oracles of God." 

Nature and Effects of Godly Fear. 

" By the fear of God is meant, not that guilty, 
slavish fear, which impenitent sinners often feel, but 
the holy, filial fear, which is peculiar to real Chris- 
tians. This fear is every-where represented by the 
inspired writers as one of the most essential parts of 
true religion, and is, indeed, not unfrequently used 
by them to denote religion itself. It is produced and 
maintained in the heart by the agency of the divine 
Spirit. It arises from a believing apprehension and 
an experimental knowledge of the existence, char- 
acter, perfections, and constant presence of Jehovah ; 



244 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

it is occasioned by a spiritual discovery, made to the 
soul, of his awful, adorable, and infinite perfections ; 
and its natural effects are, veneration for God, sub- 
mission to his will, obedience to his commands, and 
a holy, watchful care to avoid every thing which may 
grieve, displease, or provoke him to forsake us." 

The Fear of God Controlling the Imagination. 

"The fear of God controls, in some measure at 
least, the imagination. It is true that this lawless, 
and almost untamable power seems to be less influ 
enced by the fear of God than any other faculty ol 
the soul. Still, wherever the fear of God exists, the 
imagination will be constrained, in some degree, to 
submit to it. Its sallies will be carefully watched, 
its excursive wanderings will be checked ; it will be 
speedily recalled when it roams into forbidden ground, 
and be often compelled to assist the Christian in his 
meditations on death, judgment, and the realities of 
eternity. Knowing that the thought of foolishness 
is sin, he who fears God will at least strenuously en- 
deavor to prevent vain thoughts from lodging within 
him, and his endeavors will gradually be crowned 
with success. Such is that submission of the soul 
to God which walking in his fear implies." 

The Duty of the Church toward Children. 

"A duty incumbent on every Church, considered 
as such, is to take care of the religious education of 
its children. It is true that the religious education 
of children is a duty more immediately incumbent 
on their parents ; but it is incumbent on Churches 
to take care that such of their members as are parents 



Selections from his Works. 245 

perform this duty. The neglect of it ought to be re- 
garded as a subject of Church discipline. Address- 
ing his ancient Church as an individual, God says, 
Thou hast taken my sons and my daughters which 
thou hast borne unto me, and hast sacrificed them 
unto idols to be devoured. Is this a small matter, 
that thou hast slain my children ? But it is evident 
that the Jewish Church did not actually sacrifice 
children to idols in its collective capacity. This was 
the act of individual parents. Yet because the 
Church did not interpose to prevent the sacrifice, it 
is charged upon it as the act of the whole. And so 
if children of the Church are now sacrificed to Satan 
on the altar of the world by their parents, the Church 
itself is answerable, so far as their own neglect was 
the cause." 

The Gospel Glad Tidings. 

" Do you demand evidences that the Gospel is glad 
tidings ? You shall have them. Come with me to 
the garden of Eden. Look back to the hour which 
succeeded man's apostasy. See the golden chain 
which bound man to God sundered, apparently for- 
ever, and this wretched world, groaning under the 
weight of human guilt and of its Creators curse, sink- 
ing down, far down, into a bottomless abyss of misery 
and despair. See that tremendous Being who is a 
consuming fire, encircling it on every side, and wrap- 
ping it, as it were, in an atmosphere of flame. Hear 
from his lips the tremendous sentence, Man has 
sinned, and man must die. See the king of terrors 
advancing, with gigantic strides, to execute the awful 
sentence, spreading desolation through the vegetable, 



246 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

animal, and rational kingdoms, and brandishing his 
resistless dart in triumph over a prostrate world. 
See the grave expanding her marble jaws to receive 
whatever might fall before his wide-wasting scythe, 
and hell beneath yawning dreadfully to engulf forever 
its guilty, helpless, despairing victims. Such was 
the situation of our ruined race after the apostasy. 
There was nothing before every child of Adam but a 
certain fearful looking-for of judgment and fiery in- 
dignation. There was but one road through this 
world, but one gate that opened out of it — the wide 
gate and the broad way that leads to destruction. 

" My friends, endeavor to realize, if you can, the 
horrors of such a situation. I am aware that to do 
this is by no means easy. You have so long been 
accustomed to hear the tidings of salvation that you 
can scarcely conceive of what would have been our 
situation had no Saviour appeared. But endeavor, 
for a moment, to forget that you ever heard of Christ 
or his Gospel. View yourselves as immortal beings 
hastening to eternity, with the curse of God's broken 
law, like a flaming sword, pursuing you ; death, with 
his dart dipped in mortal poison, awaiting you ; a 
dark cloud, fraught with the lightnings of divine 
vengeance, rolling over your heads ; your feet stand- 
ing in slippery places in darkness, and the bottomless 
pit beneath, expecting your fall. Then, when not 
only all hope, but all possibility of escape seemed 
taken away, suppose the flaming sword suddenly ex- 
tinguished, the sting of death extracted, the Sun of 
righteousness bursting forth, painting a rainbow upon 
the before threatening cloud, a golden ladder let 
down from the opening gates of heaven, while a choir 



Selections from his Works. 247 

of angels swiftly descending, exclaim, 'Behold, we 
bring you glad tidings of great joy, which shall be to 
all people ; for unto you is born a Saviour who is 
Christ the Lord.' Would you, could you, while con- 
templating such a scene, and listening to the angelic 
message, doubt it communicated glad tidings ? Would 
you not rather unite with them in exclaiming, Glad 
tidings, glad tidings, glory to God in the highest, that 
there is peace on earth and good-will to men ?" 

The Gospel Glorious Glad Tidings, 

" The Gospel is not only glad tidings, but glorious 
glad tidings. St. Paul, contrasting the Gospel and 
the Law, with a view to show the superiority of the 
former, observes that if the ministration of death was 
glorious, the ministration of the Spirit must be still 
more glorious ; for if the ministration of condemna- 
tion be glory, much more doth the ministration of 
righteousness exceed in glory. Glory is the display 
of excellence, or perfection. That the Gospel con- 
tains a grand display of the moral excellences and 
perfections of Jehovah will be denied by none but 
the spiritually blind, who are ignorant of its nature. 
But to give only a general view of this grand display 
of God's character in a single discourse, or even in a 
volume, is impossible. With less difficulty might we 
inclose the sun in a lantern. We shall not, therefore, 
attempt to describe a subject which must forever be 
degraded, not only by the descriptions, but by the 
conceptions, I will not say of men, but of the highest 
archangel before the throne. On no page less ample 
than that of the eternal, all-infolding mind, which de- 
vised the Gospel plan of salvation, can its glories be 



248 Mementoes of Edwakd Payson. 

displayed, nor by any inferior mind can they be fully 
comprehended. Suffice it to say, that here the moral 
character of Jehovah shines full-orbed and complete : 
here all the fullness of the Godhead, all the insuffer- 
able splendors of Deity, burst at once upon our 
aching sight : here the/ manifold perfections of God, 
holiness and goodness, justice and mercy, truth and 
grace, majesty and condescension, hatred of sin and 
compassion for sinners, are harmoniously blended, 
like the parti-colored rays of solar light in one pure 
blaze of dazzling whiteness. Here, rather than on 
any of his other works, he founds his claims to the 
highest admiration, gratitude, and love of his creat- 
ures : — here is the work which ever has called forth, 
and which through eternity will continue to call forth, 
the most rapturous praises of the celestial choirs, 
and feed the ever-glowing fires of devotion in their 
breasts ; for the glory which shines in the Gospel is 
the glory which illuminates heaven, and the Lamb 
that was slain is the light thereof. To the truth of 
these assertions all will assent who can say with the 
apostle, ' God, who commanded the light to shine out 
of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give us the 
light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face 
of Jesus Christ ; and we beheld his glory, the glory 
as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace 
and truth/ " 

An Appeal to Christian Ministers. 

" Heathen writers inform us of a soldier who, when 
sent out by his general with tidings of a victory, 
would not stop to extract a thorn which had deeply 
pierced his foot until he had delivered his message 



Selections from his Works. 249 

to the Senate. And shall we, then, when sent by- 
Jehovah with such a message— a message the faithful 
delivery of which involves his glory and the eternal 
happiness of our fellow-creatures — shall we linger, 
shall we suffer any personal inconveniences, any dif- 
ficulties, any real or fancied dangers, to interrupt or 
retard us in the execution of our work ? Shall we, 
with the true water of life, the true elixir of immor- 
tality in our possession, suffer our own private con- 
cerns to divert us from presenting it to the dying, 
and forcing it into the lips of the dead ? Shall we. 
with Aaron's censer in our hands, hesitate whether 
to rush between the living and the dead, when the 
anger of the Lord is kindled, when the plague has 
already begun its ravages, and thousands are falling 
at our right hand, and ten thousand at our left ? 
Shall we wait till to-morrow to present the bread of 
life to the famished wretch, who, before to-morrow 
arrives, may expire for want of it ? Surely if we can 
do this — if we can be so regardless of our obligations 
to God and of our duty to man — the least punishment 
which we can expect is to be debarred from that sal- 
vation which we neglected to afford to others, and to 
be made answerable for the blood of all the souls 
who, in consequence of this neglect, perished in their 
sins. Let us, then, my fathers and brethren, never 
forget that the King's business requireth haste, and 
that who or whatever stands still, we must not. Let 
the sun pause in his course, though half the world 
should be wrapped in frost and darkness by his de- 
lay ; let rivers stagnate in their channels, though an 
expecting nation should perish with thirst upon its 
flood-forsaken banks ; let long-looked-for showers 



250 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

stop in mid-air, though earth, with a thousand fam- 
ished lips, invoke their descent ; but let those who 
are sent with the life-giving tidings of pardon, peace, 
and salvation to an expiring world never pause, 
never look or wish for rest till their Master's welcome 
voice shall call them from their field of labor to ever- 
lasting repose ; to that world where those, who, as 
burning or shining lights, have turned many to 
righteousness, shall shine as the stars, and as the 
brightness of the firmament for ever and ever." 

Christ as a Citizen of our World. 

" It must have been exceedingly painful to such a 
person as Christ to live in a world like this. He 
was perfectly holy, harmless, and undefiled. Of 
course, he could not look on sin but with the deep- 
est abhorrence. It is that abominable thing which 
his soul hates. Yet during the whole period of his 
residence on earth he was continually surrounded 
by it, and his feelings were every moment tortured 
with the hateful sight of human depravity. How 
much sorrow the sight occasioned him, we may in 
some measure learn from the bitter complaints which 
similar causes extorted from David, Jeremiah, and 
other ancient saints. They describe, in the most 
striking and pathetic language, the sufferings which 
they experienced from the prevalency of wickedness 
around them, and often wished for death to relieve 
them from their sufferings. But the sufferings of 
Christ from this cause were incomparably greater 
than theirs. He was far more holy than they, his 
hatred of sin incomparably more intense, and the 
sight of it proportionably more painful. In conse- 



Selections from his Works. 251 

quence of his power of searching the heart, he saw- 
unspeakably more sin in the world than any mere 
man could discover. We can discover sin only when 
it displays itself in words and actions. But he saw 
all the hidden wickedness of the heart, the depths of 
that fountain of iniquity from which all the bitter 
streams of vice and misery flow. Every man that 
approached him was transparent to his eye. In his 
best friends he saw more sin than we can discover 
in the most abandoned reprobates. He saw also, 
in a far clearer light than we can do, the dreadful 
consequences of sin, the interminable miseries to 
which it is conducting the sinner, and his feelings 
of compassion were not blunted by that selfish in- 
sensibility which enables us to bear with composure 
the sight of human distress. On the contrary, he 
was all sympathy, compassion, and love. He loved 
others as himself, and therefore felt for the sufferings 
of others as for his own. If Paul could say, Who is 
weak and I am not weak? who is offended and I 
burn not ? much more might Christ. In this, as well 
as in a still more important sense, he took upon him- 
self our griefs, and bore our sorrows. As he died 
for all, so he felt and wept for the sufferings of all. 
The temporal and eternal calamities of the whole 
human race, and of every individual among them, all 
seemed to be collected and laid upon him. He saw 
at one view the whole mighty aggregate of human 
guilt and human wretchedness, and his boundless 
benevolence and compassion made it by sympathy 
all his own. It has been said by philosophers, that 
if any man could see all the misery which is daily 
felt in the world he would never smile again. We 



252 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

need not wonder, then, that Christ, who saw and felt 
it all, never smiled, though he often wept. We may 
add, that the perfect contrast between the heavens 
which he had left and the world into which he came, 
rendered a residence in the latter peculiarly painful 
to his feelings. In heaven he had seen nothing but 
holiness, happiness, and love. In this world, on the 
contrary, he saw little but wickedness, hatred, and 
misery in ten thousand forms. In heaven he was 
crowned with glory, and honor, and majesty, and 
surrounded by throngs of admiring, adoring angels. 
On earth, he found himself plunged in poverty, 
wretchedness, and contempt, and surrounded by ma- 
lignant, implacable enemies. My friends, think of a 
prince educated with care and tenderness in his 
father's court, where he heard nothing but sounds 
of pleasure and praise, and saw nothing but scenes 
of honor and magnificence, sent unattended to labor 
as a slave in a rebellious province, where himself and 
his father were hated and despised ; think of a per- 
son of the most delicate and refined taste going from 
the bosom of his family, and the magnificent abodes 
of a polished city, to spend his life in the filthy huts 
of the most degraded and barbarous savages, and 
compelled daily to witness the disgusting scenes of 
cruelty and brutality which are there exhibited ; think 
of a man endowed with the tenderest sensibility, 
compelled to live on a field of battle, among the 
corpses of the dead and the groans of the dying, or 
shut up for years in a madhouse with wretched ma- 
niacs, where nothing was to be heard but the burst 
of infuriated passions, the wild laugh of madness, and 
the shrieks and ravings of despair. Think of these 



Selections from his Works. 253 

instances, and you will have some conception, though 
but a faint one, of the scenes which this world pre- 
sented to our Saviour, of the contrast between it and 
the heaven he left, of the sorrows which embittered 
every moment of his earthly existence, and of the 
love which induced him voluntarily to submit to 
such sorrows. 

" Another circumstance which contributed to ren- 
der our Saviour a man of sorrows, and his life a life 
of grief, was the reception he met with from those 
whom he came to save. Had they received him with 
that gratitude and respect which he deserved, and 
permitted him to rescue them from their miseries, it 
would have been some alleviation of his sorrows. 
But even this alleviation was in a great measure 
denied him. Some few, indeed, received him with 
affection and respect, though even they often grieved 
him by their unkindness and unbelief; but by far 
the greater part of his countrymen he was treated 
with the utmost cruelty and contempt. Many of 
them would not allow him even to remove their 
bodily diseases, and still greater numbers were un- 
willing that he should save them from their sins. 
Now to a noble, ingenuous mind, nothing is so cut- 
ting, so torturing, as such conduct. To see himself 
despised, slandered, and persecuted with implacable 
malice, by the very beings he was laboring to save ; 
to see all his endeavors to save them frustrated by 
their own incorrigible folly and wickedness ; to see 
them, by rejecting him, filling up to the brim their 
cup of criminality and wrath, and sinking into eter- 
nal perdition within reach of his vainly-offered hand 
— to see this, must have been distressing indeed. 



254 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

Yet this Christ saw. Thus he endured the contra- 
diction of sinners against himself; and how deeply it 
affected him, we may infer from the fact, that though 
his own sufferings never wrung from him a tear, he 
once and again wept in the bitterness of his soul 
over rebellious Jerusalem, exclaiming, ' O that thou 
hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, 
the things that belong to thy peace ; but now they 
are hid from thine eyes ! ' 

"Another circumstance that threw a shade of 
gloom and melancholy over our Saviour's life was, 
his clear view and constant anticipation of the dread- 
ful agonies in which it was to terminate. He was 
not ignorant, as we happily are, of the miseries which 
were before him. He could not hope, as we do, when 
wretched to-day, to be happier to-morrow. Every 
night, when he lay down to rest, the scourge, the 
crown of thorns, and the cross were present to his 
mind ; and on these dreadful objects he every morn- 
ing opened his eyes, and every morning saw them 
nearer than before. Every day was to him like the 
day of his death, of such a death, too, as no one ever 
suffered before or since. How deeply the prospect 
affected him is evident from his own language : * I 
have a baptism to be baptized with, and how am I 
straitened till it be accomplished ! \ " 

The Meekness and Patience of yesus in Crucifixion. 

" ' He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he opened 
not his mouth. He was brought as a lamb to the 
slaughter, and as a sheep before his shearers is dumb, 
so he opened not his mouth/ Never was language 
more descriptive of the most perfect meekness and 



Selections from his Works. 255 

patience ; never was prediction more fully justified 
by the event than in the case before us. Christ was 
indeed led as a lamb to the slaughter. Silent, meek, 
and unrepining he stood before his butchers, at once 
innocent and patient as a lamb. No murmurs, no 
complaints, no angry recriminations escaped from 
his lips. If they were opened, it was but to express 
the most perfect submission to his Father's will, and 
to breathe out prayers for his murderers. Yes, even 
at that dreadful moment, when they were nailing him 
to the cross — when nature, whose voice will at such 
a time be heard, was shuddering and convulsed in 
the prospect of a speedy and violent death — when his 
soul was tortured by the assaults of malignant fiends, 
and his Father's face hidden from his view — even 
then he possessed his soul in patience to such a de- 
gree as to be able to pray for his murderers. My 
friends, we must attempt to bring the scene more 
fully to your view. Come with us, a moment, to 
Calvary. See the savage, ferocious soldiers seizing 
with rude violence his sacred body, forcing it down 
upon the cross, wresting and extending his limbs, 
and with remorseless cruelty forcing through his 
hands and feet the ragged spikes which were to fast- 
en him on it. See the Jewish priests and rulers 
watching with looks of malicious pleasure the horrid 
scene, and attempting to increase his sufferings by 
scoffs and blasphemies. Now contemplate attentive- 
ly the countenance of the wonderful sufferer, which 
seems like heaven opening in the midst of hell, and 
tell me what it expressed. You see it, indeed, full 
of anguish, but it expresses nothing like impatience, 
resentment, or revenge. On the contrary, it beams 



256 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

with pity, benevolence, and forgiveness. It perfectly 
corresponds with the prayer which, raising his mild, 
imploring eye to heaven, he pours forth to God, 
1 Father, forgive them, for they know not what they 
do!' Christian, look at your Master and learn how 
to suffer. Sinner, look at your Saviour and learn 
how to admire, to imitate, and to forgive." 

Christ's Mediatorial Kingdom. 

" The laws of this extensive kingdom are recorded 
in the Gospel. The subjects of it may be divided 
into two grand classes — those who are obedient and 
those who are rebellious. The former class is com- 
posed of good men and angels ; the latter, of wicked 
men and devils. The former serve Christ willingly 
and cheerfully. He rules them with the golden 
scepter of love ; his law is written in their hearts ; 
they esteem his yoke easy and his burden light, and 
habitually execute his will. All the bright armies 
of heaven, angels and archangels, who excel in 
strength, are his servants, and go forth at his com- 
mand, as messengers of love to minister unto the 
heirs of salvation, or as messengers of wrath to exe- 
cute vengeance on his enemies. Nor are his obedient 
subjects to be found only in heaven. In this rebell- 
ious world also the standard of the cross, the banner 
of his love, is erected, and thousands and millions 
who were once his enemies have been brought will- 
ing captives to his feet, have joyfully acknowledged 
him as their Master and Lord, and sworn allegiance 
to him as the Captain of their salvation. Nor is his 
authority less absolute over the second class of his 
subjects, who still persist in their rebellion. In vain 



Selections from his Works. 257 

do they say, We will not have this man to reign 
over us. He rules them with a rod of iron, causes 
even their wrath to praise him, and makes them the 
involuntary instruments of carrying on his great de- 
signs. He holds all the infernal spirits in a chain, 
governs the conquerors, monarchs, and great ones of 
the earth, and in all things wherein they did proudly 
is still above them. None are too small to escape 
his notice, none are too great to be controlled by his 
power." 

The Progress and Prospects of Christ's Kingdom,. 

" By the progress of this kingdom, we do not mean 
the increase of Messiah's power — for, as we have just 
seen, this is already unlimited and universal — but we 
mean the spread of the Gospel, and the increase of 
the number of Christ's obedient subjects. In this 
respect the progress of the kingdom has hitherto 
been comparatively small ; for though thousands and 
millions have submitted to his arms, yet many mill- 
ions are still in arms against him. Satan still appar- 
ently reigns as the prince and god of this ruined 
world. Darkness still covers the earth, and gross 
darkness the people ; and by far the greater part of 
our race are still the wretched captives of idolatry, 
vice, and superstition. But it shall not always, it 
shall not long, be thus. The promise of Him who 
cannot lie assures us that it shall not. His word 
abounds with the most explicit and animating pre- 
dictions of the future spread and approaching glories 
of Messiah's reign. The stone which the king of 
Babylon saw in his dream cut out of a mountain 

without hands, shall spread and fill the earth. In 

17 



258 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

the days of these kings, that is, of the Roman em- 
perors, says the prophet Daniel, in expounding this 
dream, shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom 
which shall never be destroyed ; it shall never be left 
to other people, but it shall break in pieces and con- 
sume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand forever. 
The fulfillment of these predictions the same prophet 
elsewhere describes. ' I saw in the night visions/ 
says he, ' and behold, one like the Son of man came 
with the clouds, and came to the Ancient of days, 
and there was given him dominion and glory and a 
kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages 
should serve him. His dominion is an everlasting 
dominion, and his kingdom, that which shall not be 
destroyed/ In addition to this, the prophecies of 
Isaiah and the minor prophets are filled with predic- 
tions of the same import. We are there assured, that 
in the last days the mountain of the Lord's house 
shall be established upon- the top of the mountains, 
and all nations shall flow unto it ; that the knowledge 
of the Lord shall fill the earth ; that Ethiopia shall 
stretch out her hands unto God, and that the Jews 
shall be brought in with the fullness of the Gentiles. 
It is, however, needless to insist on these predictions, 
for we are assured that Christ shall reign till all 
enemies are put under his feet ; and we are also in- 
formed that Jehovah has sworn by himself that every 
knee shall bow to Jesus, and every tongue confess 
that he is Lord. In vain will any strive to prevent 
the fulfillment of this declaration. Those who refuse 
to confess him cheerfully, shall be compelled to do it 
reluctantly ; those who will not bend shall break ; for 
God has declared that he will overturn, overturn, and 



Selections from his Works. 259 

overturn, till He shall come whose right it is, and the 
dominion shall be given to him, and that all the king- 
doms of this world shall become the kingdoms of our 
Lord and of his Christ. Nor will it be long ere these 
predictions are fulfilled. Already is the banner of 
the cross unfurled. Already are the soldiers of Christ 
going forth to subdue the nations, with weapons 
which are mighty to the pulling down of strongholds. 
Already does a voice begin to be heard throughout 
the world, saying, ' Repent, for the kingdom of heav- 
en is at hand.' Already has Christ ascended the 
chariot of his salvation, and is riding forth, conquer- 
ing and to conquer, arrayed in meekness, and truth, 
and righteousness, while God overturns, overturns, 
and overturns the nations which oppose him, and 
dashes them in pieces against each other like a pot- 
ter's vessel. Already is the cry heard from Asia and 
Africa, Come over and help us ; and soon will Ethi- 
opia stretch out her hands to God, and the isles of 
the Southern ocean wait for his law. Soon will the 
cry be heard, Alleluia, for the Lord God omnipotent 
reigneth. He who sits on the throne is exclaiming, 
Behold, I create all things new ; I create new heav- 
ens and a new earth. Behold, the Lord God shall 
come with a strong arm, his reward is with him, and 
his work before him. Prepare ye, then, the way of 
the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for 
our God. But what tongue can describe the hap- 
piness which is approaching ? who can paint the 
glories of Messiah's reign ? In his days shall the 
righteous flourish, and abundance of peace, so long 
as the moon endureth. His name shall endure as 
long as the sun, and men shall be blessed in him, 



260 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

and all nations shall call him blessed. The wilder- 
ness and the solitary place shall be glad, and the 
desert rejoice and blossom as the rose. Then shall 
the eyes of the blind be opened, and the ears of the 
deaf unstopped ; then shall the lame man leap as a 
hart, and the tongue of the dumb sing. Nations shall 
not lift up sword against nation, nor learn war any 
more. The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and 
the leopard lie down with the kid, and the calf and 
the young lion and the fatling together, and a little 
child shall lead them. And the cow and the bear 
shall feed ; their young ones shall lie down together. 
Thus that paradisaical state which was destroyed by 
the first Adam shall be restored by the second ; and 
love, peace, and happiness, which sin had banished 
from the world, shall again return under the mild 
reign of Him who is emphatically styled the Prince 
of Peace. Who, in view of these glorious prospects, 
can avoid exclaiming, 

1 long expected day begin ; 

Dawn on this world of death and sin ! 

Come the great day, the glorious hour,' etc.?" 

Christ's Ascension. 

" That we may look at this scene aright, it is de- 
sirable to view it as it appeared to his disciples. In 
order to do this, we must, by the aid of the imagina- 
tion and a strong faith, place ourselves as it were in 
their circles, and look at it through their eyes. Find- 
ing them assembled in Jerusalem, their Master, for 
the last time, calls them to follow him. They obey, 
and he leads them out of the city to the Mount of 
Olives. There, standing on an eminence, where they 



Selections from his Works. 261 

can all see him, he gives them his last instructions 
and his parting promises. Then, lifting up his hands, 
he pronounces upon them a blessing, and while he 
pronounces it, they see him rise from the earth, self- 
moved, self-supported, and begin to ascend. Reclin- 
ing as on the bosom of the air he rises higher and 
higher, with a gentle, gradual motion, his counte- 
nance, beaming compassion and love, still fixed on 
his disciples, and his hands extended, still scattering 
blessings on them as he ascended. Now he rises 
above the groves by which they are surrounded ; now 
he mounts to the middle region of the air ; now he 
reaches the clouds, and still they see him. But there 
a cloudy vehicle receives him, conceals him from 
their eyes, and rises with him. With eager eyes they 
still follow the ascending cloud as it mounts toward 
the skies, lessening to their sight till it becomes only 
a small speck, and at length wholly disappears, far 
away in the ethereal regions. 

" But though their eyes could follow him no fur- 
ther, we need not stop here. Borrowing the glass 
of revelation we may see him still ascending, reach- 
ing, and entering the wide, unfolded gates of heaven, 
sitting down at the right hand of the throne of God, 
far above all principalities, and powers, and might, 
and dominion, and every name which is named, not 
only in this world but in the world to come ; and 
there receiving the scepter of universal empire, and 
exercising all power in heaven and on earth. As- 
sisted by revelation faith may also see the employ- 
ments in which our ascended Saviour is engaged. 
She may see him appearing in the presence of the 
Father as the Advocate of his people, and continuing 



262 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

to make intercession for all that come unto God by 
him. She may see him entering with his own blood 
into the heavenly temple, and there presenting a full 
atonement for the sins of men. She may see him 
receiving gifts for men, and sending down those gifts 
to the successive generations of mankind. Finally, 
she may see him fulfilling his dying declaration to 
his disciples : In my Fathers house are many man- 
sions, I go to prepare a place for you." 

The Human Soul a Palace. 

"The human soul may be justly compared to a 
palace ; for it is a most beautiful, noble, and mag- 
nificent edifice ; an edifice formed of imperishable 
materials ; an edifice fearfully, admirably, wonderfully 
made. It is a house not made with hands, a build- 
ing of God, the masterpiece of the all-wise and all- 
powerful Architect, who formed and adorned it for 
his own use. It is sufficiently capacious to contain 
not only the whole creation, but even the Creator 
himself; for it was especially designed to be the 
earthly residence of that high and holy One who fills 
immensity and inhabits eternity. Even now, de- 
based, disfigured, and polluted as it is by sin, it bears 
the evident marks of original grandeur and beauty ; 
and, as the poet observes of Beelzebub, is majestic 
though in ruins." 

Satan's Code of Laws. 

" Should the foe of God and man publish a revela- 
tion of his own mind and will, issue his own orders, 
and promulgate his decrees to mankind, would he 
not urge them to live just as they now do ? Would 



Selections from his Works. 263 

he not tell the young to put off the thought of death, 
to neglect religion, to conform to the world, to give 
themselves up without restraint to the pursuit of 
frivolous pleasures and amusements, serving divers 
lusts and vanities ? Would he not charge the middle- 
aged to seek first the good things of this life, instead 
of the kingdom of God and his righteousness ; to lay 
up treasures on earth and not in heaven ; to rise 
early, sit up late, and eat the bread of carefulness ; 
and put off religion to old age ? Would he not com- 
mand all ages and ranks in society to spend the 
Sabbath in idleness ; in reading foolish, frivolous, or 
pernicious books ; in transacting, or at least thinking 
of, their worldly business ; in unprofitable visits or 
useless conversation ; instead of employing it in at- 
tending to the great things which concern their ever- 
lasting peace ? Would he not charge them when in 
the house of God to let their thoughts wander after 
vanities, to neglect or forget the truth which is pro- 
claimed, or to apply it to their neighbors instead of 
themselves? Would he not enjoin it upon them, to 
neglect the word of God, and to trust in their own 
righteousness ; or assure them, as he did our first 
parents, that though they transgress and eat forbid- 
den fruit, yet they shall not surely die ? Would he 
not especially charge those who begin to think seri- 
ously of religion to dismiss all such melancholy and 
superstitious fancies, and either to give themselves 
no concern respecting eternity, or at least defer it to 
a more convenient season ? In a word, would he not 
direct mankind to love themselves supremely, to do 
their own pleasure, obey their own inclinations, seek 
their own exaltation, profit, and honor ; and, without 



264 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

regarding what God has said, to cast off his fear and 
restrain prayer before him, walking in the way of 
their own hearts, and according to the sight of their 
own eyes ? Yes, my friends, these are the secret 
wishes of Satan, these would be his commands, 
should he publish a code of laws ; and hence it is 
but too evident that mankind obey him, that he is 
the god of this world, and keeps entire possession of 
every unconverted soul." 

Satan's Armor. 

" He has his armor both offensive and defensive, 
and with this he defends and fortifies his palace in 
the soul, and attempts to make it strong against the 
Captain of our salvation. This armor is directly the re- 
verse of that Christian armor which St. Paul describes 
in his Epistle to the Ephesians. Instead of being 
girded with the girdle of truth, he girds the sinner with 
a girdle of error, falsehood, and deceit. Instead of 
the breastplate of Christ's righteousness, he furnishes 
him with a breastplate of his own fancied righteous- 
ness, goodness, and morality. Instead of the shield 
of faith, which the Christian possesses, the sinner 
has the shield of unbelief; and with this he defends 
himself against the threatenings and curses of the 
law, and all the arrows of conviction which are aimed 
at him by the ministers of Christ. Instead of having 
on for a helmet the hope of salvation, by faith in the 
Saviour's blood, Satan furnishes his subjects with a 
false hope of obtaining salvation at last, let them live 
as they please ; and instead of the sword of the 
Spirit, which is the word of God, he teaches them 
to wield the sword of a tongue set on fire of hell, and 



Selections from his Works. 265 

furnishes them with a magazine of cavils, sneers, ex- 
cuses, and objections, with which they attack religion 
and defend themselves. He also builds for them 
many refuges of lies, in which, as in a strong castle, 
they fondly hope to shelter themselves from the 
wrath of God." 

The False Peace of the Sinner. 

" The peace which the subjects of Satan enjoy 
consists in these two particulars : 1. They are seldom 
if ever alarmed respecting their own salvation. Like 
madmen, who fancy themselves kings and emperors, 
the sinner thinks that he is rich and increased in 
goods, and has need of nothing ; and does not in the 
least suspect that he is poor, and miserable, and blind, 
and naked. He has a good opinion of himself, sus- 
pects no danger, thinks little of death or eternity ; or 
if he does, fancies that he is already prepared, and that 
there is no cause of anxiety or alarm. True, he may 
occasionally, notwithstanding his armor, be slightly 
wounded by the arrows of conviction, or he may hear 
the curses and terrors of the law proclaimed by God's 
ministers when they lift up their voices as a trumpet 
to warn him of his transgressions ; but he listens to 
them as to the noise of distant thunder, which, though 
it roll over the heads of others, disturbs not himself, 
and is quickly forgotten amid the hurry and bustle 
of worldly pursuits. 

2. The sinner enjoys peace, because there is noth- 
ing in his soul to take the part of God against Satan, 
and thus produce intestine war and commotion. All 
his powers and faculties are leagued against God on 
the side of sin, unless we except his conscience, and 



266 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

this soon becomes seared and stupefied, so that its 
voice is seldom heard. There is consequently in the 
sinner's breast none of that inward warfare which the 
Christian feels, no lusting of the flesh against the 
Spirit, and of the Spirit against the flesh. In this 
respect all is calm and peaceful within, but, alas ! it is 
the calmness and peace of spiritual death. 

His understanding, his will, his affections, his im- 
agination are all chained up in spiritual bondage, 
darkness, and death. The foe of God and man reigns 
supreme and uncontrolled on the throne of his heart ; 
all his mental and corporeal faculties are so many 
instruments of unrighteousness to displease and dis- 
honor his Maker ; yet he is careless and secure, sus- 
pects no danger, and, while hardening himself against 
God, hopes to prosper." 

The Sinner's Substitute in the Hands of Justice, 

"But the proofs of Christ's love do not end here. 
He also gave himself up to the wrath of God, to the 
curse of his broken law. He surrendered himself as 
a sinner into the hands of incensed justice ; and while 
he thus stood in the sinner's place, God treated him 
as if he had been a sinner. He hid his face from 
him ; set the terrors of his wrath in array against 
him ; made him the mark of those arrows, the poison 
of which drinks up the spirits ; and plunged the 
flaming sword deep in his inmost soul. In this the 
very essence of his sufferings consisted. All that 
men and devils could do he bore without a groan. 
But when the weight of divine wrath crushed him 
down, when his Fathers face was hidden from his 
view, and he beheld him only in the character of an 



Selections from his Works. 267 

awful, holy, avenging God, as a consuming fire to 
sinful creatures, then his anguish could no longer 
be concealed, but burst forth in that heart-rending 
exclamation, ' My God, my God, why hast thou for- 
saken me!'" 

Man Lost to God. 

" Should a man by any means be deprived of sight, 
he might be said to be lost to the sun, though this 
luminary would still shine around him, warm him 
with its beams, and produce the fruits which pre- 
served his life. But he would have lost all views of 
its brightness, and of those objects which it discovers 
to others ; its light would no longer guide him, nor 
enable him to discern the dangers which might be in 
his path. In a similar manner are men lost with re- 
spect to God. Though his glory shines around them, 
and his power preserves their lives and gives them 
all the blessings they enjoy, yet they realize not his 
presence ; they are blind to his perfections ; they see 
not his glory in his works ; they hear not his voice 
in his word ; they are not guided by his light, they 
discern not the objects which he reveals. In a word, 
the Father of lights, the great sun of the universe, 
has no existence in their apprehensions. And when 
they look up to heaven all is dark, and the eternal 
throne appears empty. When they contemplate the 
visible creation they see only a fair but lifeless body ; 
for of God, the animating, guiding soul, who fills, up- 
holds, and directs every part, they perceive nothing. 
Even when they look into the volume of his word, it 
is to them only a dead-letter, and they find there 
nothing of God, though he lives and speaks in every 



268 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

line. Having thus lost the knowledge of the true 
God, they turn, of course, to some created idol, and 
transfer to it that affection, confidence, and depend- 
ence which belong to him. Forsaking the fountain 
of living waters, they have hewed out to themselves 
cisterns, broken cisterns, which can hold no water. 
Thus they are lost to God, as this world would be 
lost to the sun should it fly off into the regions of 
eternal frost and darkness." 

Man Lost to Holiness and Happiness, 

" Being thus lost to God, mankind are, of course, 
lost to holiness. In forsaking him, they forsake the 
path of duty and become sinners. In forsaking him, 
they forsake also the Author of all holiness in the 
hearts of creatures. Turn a mirror from the sun, 
and it ceases at once to reflect his image. Place it 
in darkness, and it emits not a gleam of light. So 
when a creature turns from God, he loses at once his 
holy image. Forsaking the fountain of good, he be- 
comes wholly destitute of goodness. Should the 
most perfect created spirit in heaven wander from 
God, he would cease to be holy; he would become 
wholly depraved ; he would be a devil. Agreeably, 
the Scriptures invariably represent mankind as by 
nature entirely destitute of holiness ; as alienated 
from the life of God through the ignorance that is in 
them, because of the blindness of their hearts ; in a 
word, as dead in trespasses and sins, and, of course, 
as devoid of holiness as a dead man is of life. In 
consequence of being thus lost to God and holiness, 
mankind are consequently lost to happiness. God 
is the fountain of felicity, the only source of real 



Selections from his Works. 269 

happiness to intelligent creatures. He is the proper 
element of the soul, as the ocean is the element of its 
inhabitants, and as well might the inhabitants of the 
ocean be happy in the burning sands of Arabia, as 
man can be happy in a state of absence from God." 

The Penal Consequences of Sin. 

" By the penal consequences of sin we mean those 
present and future miseries which the justice of a 
holy God has attached to its commission. Among 
those miseries may be mentioned those guilty fears 
and reproaches of conscience which, in a greater or 
less degree, all sinners experience. If you will look 
into your own breasts, my friends, and consider how 
much you suffer from fears of death, apprehensions 
of God's anger, and self-reproach ; if you reflect how 
often these things haunt you in secret, and how often 
they render you unhappy in society even, when an 
aching heart is concealed by a smiling countenance, 
you will feel convinced, that if other men are like 
you, they must feel much more unhappiness than 
they appear to feel, or than they are willing to con- 
fess. And, my friends, other sinful men are like you, 
and the mental sufferings which agitate your breasts 
are a faithful counterpart to those which they experi- 
ence ; and never do these sufferings cease till the 
sinner becomes holy, or his conscience is seared and 
he is given up of God. 

" In the next place, among the penal consequences 
may be reckoned death, with all the diseases, pains, 
and sufferings which precede it, and the heart-rend- 
ing anguish which it often occasions when it deprives 
us of our children and friends. By sin death entered 



270 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

into the world, and it passes upon all men, because 
all have sinned. Were there nothing else to render 
sinful men unhappy, the certainty of death would 
alone be sufficient to do it ; for the more happy they 
were in other respects, the more would their happi- 
ness be disturbed by a dread of that awful hour which 
must put an end to it ; and if their happiness de- 
pended on the enjoyment of friends, the uncertainty 
of their life would furnish new cause for anxiety and 
alarm. 

" But these things, though sufficient to render men 
strangers to happiness, are not all the penal conse- 
quences of sin. On the contrary they are but the 
beginning of sorrows, for the wages of sin is death, 
including not the death of the body only, but the 
death, the eternal death, of the soul. By the broken 
law of God all sinners are doomed to be cast into the 
lake of fire, which, says an inspired writer, is the 
second death ; there to sink deeper and deeper through 
eternity in the abyss of wretchedness and despair, 
lost, forever lost, to God, to holiness, to happiness, 
and hope." 

The Light that Guides us Back to God. 

" Should this world, which now revolves round the 
sun, wander from it so far as to lose sight of its 
beams, it is evident that it could never again find its 
way back to the sun. It could hold up no light by 
which to discover this luminary ; for the sun can be 
seen only by its own rays, and if the world should 
once lose sight of these rays, and be lost in the 
regions of eternal night, there would be nothing to 
guide it back, nothing to direct its course toward the 



Selections from his Works. 271 

sun. Then the only way to secure its return would 
be for a ray of light, proceeding from the sun, to fol- 
low the lost planet through all its wanderings, and 
thus point out the way to the luminary from which 
itself emanated. Such is the situation of mankind 
with respect to God, the Sun of the universe. They 
have wandered from him so far that they have lost 
sight of his beams, all knowledge of his character, 
and of the way to find him. 

" Now Christ, considered as the Son of man, is a 
ray of light from this Sun sent to find and guide us 
back to God. This, we are told, is the brightness, 
the effulgence, the shining forth, of his Father's glory, 
the true light which enlighteneth every man who 
cometh into the world. To find lost man he under- 
took a long and toilsome journey, even a journey 
from heaven to earth, and at his return to heaven he 
pointed out the way, and commanded, invited, and 
encouraged man to follow." 

The Marshaled Hosts, 

" Other books, even the most interesting, contain 
only accounts of human wars, terrestrial enterprises, 
and expeditions for the conquest or deliverance of 
nations, and the struggles of the oppressed for lib- 
erty, or of the daring exploits, perilous achieve- 
ments, and hairbreadth escapes of the falsely brave. 
But the Bible, independently of many other most 
interesting subjects, gives us an account of a war 
between good and evil, between God and the powers 
of darkness ; of an expedition, undertaken for the 
deliverance of a ruined, lost, enslaved world — an ex- 
pedition planned in heaven, devised in the remote 



272 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

ages of eternity, and finally accomplished in the most 
successful manner by the eternal Son of God. In 
this war we behold sin and Satan, and death and 
hell, with all the power of earth, marshaled on one 
side ; and on the other, the Seed of the woman, the 
Son of man, going forth unarmed and alone to cer- 
tain victory and not less certain death ; to victory 
which could be obtained only by his death, but which 
was completed by his triumphant resurrection and 
ascension to heaven. As the prize contended for in 
this warfare, we see millions of immortal souls, the 
least of which is of far more value than this world, 
with the worlds around it ; souls whom the Son of 
man is seeking to raise to heaven, while his foes wish 
only to sink them deep in hell. Such is the war 
which the word of God describes, such the combat- 
ants, such the spoils of victory." 

God's Highest Claims, 

" It has ever been allowed that there is something 
venerable, as well as affecting, in the sorrows of suf- 
fering greatness ; and that a wise and good monarch 
reduced to poverty and distress is a spectacle which 
no man, not wholly devoid of feeling, could contem- 
plate without feeling emotions of respectful sympathy. 
How venerable, how grand, how dignified, then, were 
the sorrows and sufferings of the Son of God ! sorrows 
and sufferings brought upon him, not by his own 
misconduct and imprudence, but by his own bound- 
less benevolence. Who, then, would not have ex- 
pected that these sorrows should have been held 
sacred ? Who does not perceive that God on the 
throne of the universe has, if I may so speak, less 



Selections from his Works. 273 

claims upon the reverence, gratitude, and affection 
of his creatures, than God manifest in the flesh in 
the form of a servant ? Who does not see that God, 
appearing as Immanuel — God with us — has more 
numerous and more powerful claims upon mankind 
than God in any other form ? If, then, Jehovah is 
worshiped and adored with rapturous affection by 
angels in heaven, much more might it be expected 
that he should be loved and praised by men, when 
for their sakes he appeared as a man of sorrows on 
earth." 

Goodness of Heart and Greatness of Mind. 

" In the character of the man Christ Jesus, good- 
ness of heart and greatness of mind were combined. 
He possessed, in the highest possible degree, every 
estimable moral and intellectual quality. He was 
the only perfect man which the world has seen since 
the fall. He exhibited human nature in the highest 
degree of perfection to which it can be raised. In 
him goodness and greatness were not only personi- 
fied, but, if I may so express it, concentrated and 
condensed. He was light and love clothed with a 
body. Qualities which are never seen united in men, 
and which seem almost incompatible with each other, 
were in him sweetly and harmoniously blended. Sel- 
dom, indeed, do we see the qualities of the lion and 
the lamb, of the serpent and the dove, uniting to- 
gether in the same person. Those who are distin- 
guished for benevolence, gentleness, condescension, 
meekness, compassion, sympathy, and sweetness of 
temper, are usually deficient in magnanimity, cour- 
age, and fortitude. And on the contrary, those who 

18 



274 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

are remarkable for possessing the qualities last men- 
tioned are usually destitute of the mild and amiable 
virtues. But Christ possessed them all. He dis- 
played, in the highest degree, magnanimity, firmness, 
courage, and fortitude ; and those heroic virtues were 
shaded and softened by all that is mild, and amiable, 
and attractive. While he far excelled all the heroes, 
conquerors, and great ones of the earth in those 
qualities of which they boast, he rivaled the smiling 
infant in tenderness and sweetness of disposition. In 
a word, he was the lion of the tribe of Judah, and he 
was the lamb of God. Here, then, was such a char- 
acter as men had never seen before; a character with 
which even the holy, omniscient Judge of excellence 
was pleased and delighted. Surely, then, it might 
have been reasonably expected that when such a 
character was presented to the wondering eye of 
mankind, they would receive him with reverence and 
affection ; that all the praises which they had for 
ages lavished on far inferior excellence would at once 
have been given to him." 

A Startling View of the Sinner's Guilt. 

" Though the measure of every impenitent sinner's 
iniquity is constantly filling up, it fills much more 
rapidly in some cases, and at some seasons, than at 
others. Some sinners appear to sin with great eager- 
ness, boldness, and diligence ; to sin with all their 
heart, and soul, and might, and strength, as if they 
were determined to see how much guilt they can 
contract in a short space. Others, who are appar- 
ently much less vicious and abandoned, fill up the 
measure of their sins with equal rapidity, in conse- 



Selections from his Works. 275 

quence of enjoying and abusing great religious priv- 
ileges, opportunities, and means of grace. Indeed, it 
may be laid down as a general rule, from which there 
are no exceptions, that the measure of every impeni- 
tent sinner's guilt fills rapidly in proportion to the 
light, the conviction, and the means of moral improve- 
ment against which he sins. As the productions of 
the earth ripen most speedily where they enjoy in 
the greatest degree a rich soil, frequent showers, and 
the genial beams of the sun, so sinners ripen most 
speedily for destruction when they are favored, in the 
greatest degree, with religious privileges and oppor- 
tunities. When a sinner is visited by some danger- 
ous disease — is brought apparently near to death — is 
in consequence awakened, alarmed, and led to prom- 
ise, that should his life be spared he will devote it to 
God — and when, on being restored to health, he for- 
gets his promises and returns to his sinful courses — 
he adds very largely to his former guilt ; more, 
perhaps, than he could have done in whole years of 
uninterrupted health. Similar remarks may be made 
respecting those who lose their possessions, their 
children, or near friends, without deriving any spirit- 
ual advantage from the loss. There are, perhaps, no 
threatenings in the Bible more terrible than those 
which are denounced against such as do not repent 
when under the stroke of God's correcting hand. 
To some who were guilty of this conduct God says, 
1 Surely this iniquity shall not be purged from you 
till ye die.' But never do sinners fill up the measure 
of their guilt more rapidly than when they sin against 
conviction ; against the remonstrances of an enlight- 
ened conscience, and the influences of the Spirit of 



2y6 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

God. Sinners who are guilty of this conduct, who 
stifle or lose religious impressions, do more, perhaps, 
to fill up the measure of their iniquities, than they 
had previously done during the whole course of their 
lives." 

The Safe Side. 
"When we love any person supremely, we are 
careful to avoid not only those things which we know 
will displease him, but such as we suspect may do it. 
We always think it best, in such cases, to be on the 
safe side, and to avoid every thing which we do not 
feel confident will not be displeasing. It is the same 
with respect to God. Those who love him supremely 
will avoid not only what they know to be sinful, but 
what they suspect may be sinful ; they will abstain 
not only from evil, but from the very appearance of 
evil ; and if they are not certain that any proposed 
indulgence is wrong, yet if they do not know it to be 
right they will reject it. They will say, There can 
certainly be no sin in not pursuing this offered pleas- 
ure, but there may be something wrong in pursuing 
it, and thus God may be displeased, and we will 
therefore keep on the safe side, and not even incur 
the risk of offending him, for the sake of any earthly 
gratification whatever." 

Repentance a Cause of Rejoicing with God. 

" God rejoices when sinners repent, because it 
gratifies him to see them escape from the tyranny 
and from the consequences of sin. God is light ; 
perfect holiness. God is love ; pure benevolence. 
His holiness and his benevolence both prompt him 
to rejoice when sinners escape from sin. Sin is that 



Selections from his Works. 277 

abominable thing which he hates. He hates it as 
an evil or malignant, and as a bitter, or destructive, 
thing. It is, indeed, both. It is the plague, the 
leprosy, the death, of intelligent creatures. It infects 
and poisons all their faculties ; plunges them into the 
lowest depths of guilt and wretchedness, and pollutes 
them with a stain which all the waters of the ocean 
cannot wash away, which all the fires of hell cannot 
remove ; from which nothing can cleanse them but 
the blood of Christ. Such is the malignity of its 
nature, that could it gain admittance into the celes- 
tial regions it would instantly transform angels to 
devils, and turn heaven into hell. That this is no 
exaggerated representation melancholy experience 
but too clearly evinces. Already has sin transformed 
angels to devils ; already has it converted this world 
from a paradise to a prison ; from a habitation of im- 
mortals to an Aceldama and a Golgotha, a place of 
skulls and a field of blood. Already has it poisoned 
not only our bodies but our souls ; it has brought 
death into the world and all our woe, and, 

1 In one hour, 
Spoiled six days' labor of a G-od.' 

Even now it stalks through our subjugated world 
with gigantic strides, spreading ruin and wretched- 
ness around in ten thousand forms. Strife and dis- 
cord, war and bloodshed, famine and pestilence, pain 
and sickness, follow in its train ; while death, mount- 
ed on his pale horse, with the grave and hell, follow 
in the rear. Such are the miseries which sin has in- 
troduced into this once happy world ; such the evils 
which attend its progress here, notwithstanding the 



278 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

various restraints which are employed to check its 
career. Would we see these evils consummated, and 
learn the full extent of that wretchedness which sin 
tends to produce, we must follow it into the eter- 
nal world, descend into those regions where peace, 
where hope never comes ; and there, by the light of 
revelation, behold sin tyrannizing over its wretched 
victims with uncontrollable fury ; fanning the inex- 
tinguishable fire, and sharpening the tooth of the 
immortal worm. See angels and archangels, thrones 
and dominions, principalities and powers, stripped of 
all their primeval glory and beauty, bound in eternal 
chains and burning with rage and malice against that 
Being in whose presence they once rejoiced, and 
whose praises they once sung. See multitudes of 
the human race in unutterable agonies of anguish 
and despair cursing the gift, the giver and prolonger, 
of their existence, and vainly wishing for annihilation 
to put a period to their miseries. Follow them 
through the long, long ages of eternity, and see them 
sinking deeper and deeper in the bottomless abyss 
of ruin ; perpetually blaspheming God because of 
their plagues, and receiving the punishment of these 
blasphemies in continual additions to their wretched- 
ness. Such are the wages of sin ; such the inevitable 
doom of the finally impenitent. From these depths 
of anguish and despair look up to the mansions of 
the blessed, and see to what a height of glory and 
felicity the grace of God will raise every sinner that 
repenteth. See those who are thus favored in unut- 
terable ecstasies of joy, love, and praise, contemplat- 
ing God face to face, reflecting his perfect image, 
shining with a splendor like that of their glorious 



Selections from his Works. 279 

Redeemer, filled with all the fullness of Deity, and 
bathing in those rivers of pleasure which flow for- 
ever at God's right hand. Follow them in their 
endless flight toward perfection. See them rapidly 
mounting from height to height, and darting onward 
with increasing swiftness and unwearied wing toward 
that infinity which they will never reach. View this, 
and then say whether infinite holiness and benev- 
olence may not with propriety rejoice over every sin- 
ner that by repentance escapes the miseries, and 
secures the felicity, here so imperfectly described." 

Why the Son of God Rejoiceth Over Repentant Sinners. 

"Why does a mother rejoice over her infant off- 
spring ? Is it not because she has given them exist- 
ence and support ? Why does a father rejoice over 
and press to his heart with new fondness the child 
whom he has just rescued from the flames which 
consumed his habitation ? Is it not because he has 
saved the object of his affections at the peril of his 
own life ? So if it be asked why Christ rejoices over 
repenting sinners, we reply, because he has given 
them spiritual life and nourishment ; because he has 
redeemed them with his own precious blood from 
eternal wretchedness and despair. In the joy arising 
from other sources he participates with his Father 
and the Holy Spirit ; but this is a cause of joy almost 
peculiar to himself. It was long since predicted re- 
specting him, that he should see of the travail of his 
soul and be satisfied ; in other words, that he should 
see the effects of his sufferings in the repentance and 
salvation of sinners, and consider this as a sufficient 
recompense for all the toils and sorrows through 



280 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

which he was called to pass. This prediction is daily 
fulfilling. Our Immanuel sees the fruit of the travail 
of his soul in every sinner that repentetb, and rejoices 
that his agonies were not endured in vain. There 
are, we trust, not a few in this assembly over whom 
he has thus rejoiced. And O ! with what affection- 
ate emotions must he regard them. You can in 
some degree conceive, my friends, what your feelings 
would be toward a trembling dove that should fly 
into your bosom for protection from the talons of a 
vulture. You can form some conception of the feel- 
ings with which David contemplated the helpless 
lamb which he had rescued, at the peril of his own 
life, from the paw of the lion and the jaws of the bear. 
But who can conceive of the emotions with which 
the Son of David must contemplate an immortal soul 
drawn down to his feet by the cords of love, whom 
he has rescued from the roaring lion at such an in- 
finite expense ? If we love, and prize, and rejoice in 
any object in proportion to the labor, pain, and ex- 
pense which it has cost us to obtain it, how greatly 
must Christ love, and prize, and rejoice in every 
penitent sinner ! His love and joy must be unutter- 
able, inconceivable, infinite. Compared with his, 
even a mother's love must be cold. My friends, for 
once I rejoice that our Saviour's toils and sufferings 
were so great, since the greater they were, the great- 
er must be his love for us and his joy in our "conver- 
sion. And permit me to add, if he thus rejoices over 
one sinner that repenteth, what must be his joy when 
all his people are collected out of every tongue, and 
kindred, and nation, and people, and presented spot- 
less before his Fathers throne ! What a full tide of 



Selections from his Works. 281 

felicity will pour in upon him, and how will his be- 
nevolent heart expand with unutterable delight, and 
swell almost to bursting, when, contemplating the 
countless myriads of the redeemed, he says, Were it 
not for my sufferings, all these immortal beings would 
have been throughout eternity as miserable, and now 
they will be as happy, as God can make them. It is 
enough. I see of the travail of my soul and am satis- 
fied. My friends, how great must that joy, that 
happiness be, which satisfies the benevolence of 
Christ" 

Similarity the Basis of Communion with God, 

"The original word in the Scriptures which is 
sometimes rendered fellowship, and sometimes com- 
munion, signifies that reciprocal intercourse or com- 
munion which subsists between beings who are 
partakers of the same nature, whose moral characters 
are similar, and who mutually know and esteem each 
other. It is an observation no less just than com- 
mon, that like rejoices in like, and where there is no 
likeness there can be no communion. Thus, for in- 
stance, there can be no communion between the in- 
habitants of the water and those of the air ; for what 
is life to the one is death to the other. There can 
be no communion, in the proper sense of the term, 
between mankind and the brutal world, because the 
former are endowed with reason and the latter are 
not. It is the same, in a less general sense, with re- 
spect to men of different ages, characters, and situa- 
tions in life. The old cannot enjoy communion with 
the young in the pleasures of youth, nor the philos- 
opher with the ignorant savage in the pursuits of the 



282 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

chase. The blind can enjoy no fellowship with those 
who see, in the beauties of vision, nor the deaf, with 
those who hear, in the harmony of sounds. Unless 
persons resemble each other, therefore, in a greater 
or less degree, there can be no mutual communica- 
tion of joys and sorrows between them ; they cannot 
enter into each other's views and feelings, clearly 
understand each other's language, enjoy each others 
society, or form an intimate, happy, and lasting union. 
But, on the other hand, when persons meet who 
resemble each other in temper, character, age, and 
situation — who love and hate the same things, and 
pursue and avoid the same objects — they readily 
unite, like drops of dew when brought into contact, 
and appear to compose but one soul in different 
bodies. Similitude, similarity of nature, of character 
and pursuits, must therefore be the basis of all true 
fellowship or communion. Hence it appears, that 
no creatures can enjoy communion with God and his 
Son but those who are partakers of his divine nature, 
who resemble him in their moral character, and who 
love, hate, and pursue those things which are respect- 
ively the objects of his love, hatred, and pursuit." 

In What Communion with God Consists. 

" This communion consists in a mutual giving and 
receiving, which is constantly maintained between 
God and the soul, and which is carried on through 
the medium of the Lord Jesus Christ ; who being 
Head over all things to his Church, and uniting God 
and man in one person, is admirably qualified to dis- 
charge the office of mediator between God and his 
people. This is he of whom Jacob's ladder was a 



Selections from his Works. 283 

type. By him all temporal and spiritual blessings 
descend from Heaven to his people, and through him 
all their prayers, and praises, and thanksgivings come 
up for a memorial before God, being perfumed with 
the incense of his precious blood. In him all fullness 
dwells, and of this fullness all his friends receive, and 
grace for grace. As the sun is continually pouring 
forth a flood of light, and heat, and sweet attractive 
influences on the planets which harmoniously revolve 
around him, rejoice in his beams, and by reflection 
return them again to their source, so the Sun of 
righteousness, whose riches of grace and glory are 
unsearchable and inexhaustible, is continually pour- 
ing forth enlightening, purifying, and life-giving in- 
fluences into the souls of believers, while they revolve 
around him, receive and rejoice in his beams, and re- 
turn them back to him in grateful ascriptions of 
thanksgiving and praise. He gives himself and all 
that he has to his people, engaging to be their God, 
their father, their friend and protector, and their ex- 
ceeding great reward ; and promising to love them, 
keep and guide them, even unto death ; to watch 
over them as the apple of his eye, to gather them 
with his arm, and carry them in his bosom ; to cause 
all things, both in time and eternity, to work together 
for their everlasting good. His people, on the other 
hand, humbly, gratefully, and joyfully receive him as 
their God and portion, and in return give up them- 
selves and all that they have to him, without reserve, 
as his people, engaging to love him, trust in him, 
worship him, to spend and be spent in promoting his 
cause, honor, and interest in the world." 



284 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

The Christian yoy in Communion with God. 

" God is pleased at other times to revive and 
strengthen Christians' fainting spirits with the cor- 
dials of his love. He sends down the Spirit of adop- 
tion into their hearts, whereby they are enabled to 
cry, Abba, Father ; and to feel all those filial affec- 
tions of love, joy, trust, hope, reverence, and depend- 
ence which is at once their duty and their happiness 
to exercise toward God. By the operation of the 
same Spirit he shines into their minds, to give them 
the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the 
face of Jesus Christ ; opens and applies to them his 
exceeding great and precious promises ; makes them 
to know the great love wherewith he has loved them ; 
and reveals to them those unutterable, inconceivable, 
and unheard-of things which he has prepared for 
those who love him. He also shines in upon their 
souls with the pure, dazzling, melting, overpowering 
beams of celestial mercy, grace, and love ; displays to 
their enraptured view the glories and beauties of Him 
who is the chief among ten thousand and altogether 
lovely ; and gives them to know the heights and 
depths, the lengths and breadths, of that love of 
Christ which passeth knowledge. Thus he gives 
them as great foretastes of heaven as their feeble 
natures can support, fills their souls to the very 
brim with all the fullness of God, and makes them 
understand that peace of God which passes all 
understanding. 

" On the other hand, the happy Christian in these 
bright, enraptured moments, while he is thus bask- 
ing in the beams of celestial light and splendor, for- 



Selections from his Works. 285 

gets the world, forgets himself, forgets his existence, 
and is wholly absorbed in the ravishing, the ecstatic 
contemplation of uncreated loveliness, glory, and 
beauty. He contemplates, he wonders, he admires, 
he loves, he adores. His whole soul goes forth in 
one intense flame of gratitude, admiration, love, and 
desire ; and he longs to plunge himself into the 
boundless ocean of perfection which opens to his 
view, and to be wholly swallowed up and lost in God. 
With an energy and activity unknown before, he 
roams and ranges through this ocean of perfection 
and glory, of power and wisdom, of truth and justice, 
of light and love, where he can find neither a bottom 
nor a shore. His soul dilates itself beyond its ordi- 
nary capacity, and expands to receive the flood of 
happiness which overwhelms it. All its desires for 
earthly happiness are dried up, and it no longer in- 
quires, Who will show me any good ? The scanty 
thirst-producing streams of earthly delight only in- 
crease the feverish desires of the soul ; the noisy, 
tumultuous transports, and fancied raptures of the 
enthusiast, the visionary, and fanatic, which proceed 
merely from the fervor of the passions and affections, 
soon die away, and leave no fruit behind ; but the 
tide of joy which flows in upon the Christian, when 
he thus enjoys communion with God, is as full, as 
constant, as unfathomable as the source from whence 
it flows. No language can do justice to his feelings, 
for his happiness is unutterable ; but with an em- 
phasis, a meaning, an expression which God only 
could excite, and which none but God can compre- 
hend, he exclaims, in broken accents, My Father, 
my God ! whom have I in heaven but thee, and what 



286 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

can a miserable worm of the dust desire besides 
thee?" 

Reasons for Family Worship. 

"Walking in all God's ordinances and command- 
ments blamelessly, implies the maintaining of the 
worship of God in the family. It is acknowledged 
that there is no command which, in so many words, 
says, Worship God in your families, or, Maintain 
family prayer. Yet that this is a duty incumbent on 
heads of families is, perhaps, as clearly taught in the 
Scriptures as if it were the subject of an express 
command. We have, for instance, the example of 
good men in favor of it. God expresses full confi- 
dence that Abraham would maintain religion in his 
family. Joshua's resolution was, ' As for me and my 
house, we will serve the Lord/ David, after the 
public exercises of religion were finished, returned to 
bless his household ; that is, to unite with them in 
an act of worship ; and our Saviour often prayed with 
his little family of disciples. Families that call not 
upon God's name are classed among the heathen, 
and it is intimated that God will pour out his fury 
upon them. Besides, we are commanded to pray al- 
ways, on all occasions and in all circumstances ; of 
course, in our families. And St. Peter exhorts hus- 
bands and wives to live together as heirs of the grace 
of life, that their prayers may not be hindered — an 
expression which evidently refers to united prayers, 
and intimates that he thought it very important that 
such prayers should not be hindered ; and that he 
took it for granted that Christian families would offer 
such prayers. Besides, the reasonableness, the pro- 



Selections from his Works. 287 

priety, and the happy effects of family worship, show- 
it to be a duty. It is reasonable and proper, for 
families have mercies in common to ask for, and they 
receive favors in common for which they should 
unite in expressing their gratitude. And the happy 
effects which result from a right performance of this 
duty are innumerable and inestimable. It has a happy 
effect upon the head of the family himself. It tends 
to make him circumspect, to produce watchfulness 
over his temper and conduct through the day ; for 
how can he indulge sin or give vent to angry passions 
in presence of the family, when he recollects that he 
is a priest in his own house ; that he prayed with 
them in the morning ; and that he will again be 
called to pray with them at night ? He cannot but 
feel that, if the rest of his conduct is not of a piece 
with this, his own children and servants will despise 
him for his inconsistency. This practice has also a 
most salutary influence upon the happiness of do- 
mestic life. If any unpleasant feelings arise between 
members of the same household, such feelings can 
scarcely outlive the return of the next season for 
family devotion. Affection and peace must return 
when they next meet around the family altar, unless 
one or the other is a hypocrite. Thus dissensions 
are prevented, and domestic peace and harmony are 
perpetuated. I may add, that it always tends to pro- 
duce, and often does produce, the most happy effects 
upon the children of the family. At least, it is cer- 
tain that a much larger proportion of children are 
moral, and become pious, in families where this duty 
is properly performed than in those where it is wholly 
neglected, or only occasionally attended to." 



288 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

The Picture Not Overdrawn. 

" Who that believes there is a God would not have 
his family one of the few faithful families on which 
God looks with approbation ? Who would not wish 
that the eye of God should discover in it nothing 
displeasing to him ? 

" Consider how much it would promote your pres- 
ent happiness to possess such a character. Where 
can happiness be found on earth, if not in such a 
family as has now been described ? Mutual affection 
and harmony, peace and contentment, would dwell 
in it. All the gifts of Providence would be enjoyed 
with a double relish, because they would be received 
as the gifts of a Father, and be sanctified by his 
word and prayer. Almost every cause of domestic 
unhappiness would be excluded. There would be 
no room for anxiety, uneasiness, and alarm ; for 
such a family could cheerfully trust in God to sup- 
ply all its real wants, and to shield it from all real 
evils. Even if afflictions came, they would come 
as mercies, and deprived of their stings. In short, 
such a family would be of one heart and of one 
soul ; that heart and that soul would be devoted to 
God, and God in return would devote himself to 
them. And O, how pleasant, how soothing, how re- 
freshing would it be to the husband, the father, to 
return at evening to such a house after the labors 
and fatigues of the day, to be greeted with affection- 
ate smiles and to return them ; to shut out the world 
with its follies and cares, and to feel, while rejoicing 
in the circle of those whom he loved, that God was 
looking down upon them with approbation and de- 



Selections from his Works. 289 

light ; that an unseen Saviour was rejoicing in the 
midst of them to see the happiness which he had 
purchased, and which his religion bestowed ! How 
sweet to close an evening thus pleasant, and a day 
spent in the service of God, by uniting around the 
family altar in an offering of prayer and praise to 
their great Benefactor, and then lie down to rest with 
that feeling of sincerity and safety which filial confi- 
dence in Heaven inspires ! Some may, perhaps, 
choose to call this representation religious romance ; 
but it is sober reality ; it is no more than has been 
actually enjoyed ; and if we see few families in which 
it is realized, it is only because there are few in which 
both heads of the family walk in all the command- 
ments and ordinances of the Lord blameless. 

"Permit me to remind you how greatly such a 
family would honor God and adorn religion. It 
would, indeed, in such a world as this, be like one of 
those ever-verdant islands which rise amid the wide 
ocean of Arabian sands, and whose constant verdure 
leads the weary and thirsty traveler to seek for the 
hidden spring which produces it. It is, perhaps, 
impossible for an insulated individual to exhibit all 
the beauty and excellence of Christianity; because 
much of it consists in the right performance of those 
relative duties which he has no opportunity to per- 
form. But in a religious family — a family where both 
husband and wife are evidently pious — religion may 
be displayed in all its parts, and in the fullness of 
its glory and beauty; and one such family will do 
more to recommend it, and to soften the prejudices 
of its enemies, than can be effected by the most 

powerful and persuasive sermon." 

19 



290 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

Solemn Questions to Parents. 

" For whom are you educating your children ? We 
ask not this question as having authority to call you 
to an account ; we ask it not with a view to pry into 
the state of your families ; we ask it not to condemn 
you ; but we ask it merely with a view to call your 
attention to the subject, and to lead conscience to 
give an answer. Say then, my friends, for whom are 
you educating your children ? for God or for his 
enemies ? Do you consider your children as a sacred 
gift, intrusted to you only for a short period, and 
which the Donor expects to be employed in his 
service, and returned to him more valuable than 
when it was bestowed ? Do you recognize God's 
right to dispose of them according to his good pleas- 
ure, and to take them from you whenever he shall 
see best ? Have you sincerely and solemnly sur- 
rendered them to God, and dedicated them to his 
service ? Are you governed by a supreme regard to 
the glory of God in all your efforts for their improve- 
ment, and in all the labors, cares, and sufferings 
which you undergo on their account ? Do you edu- 
cate them for the service of the King of kings, daily 
laboring to convince them of the infinite importance 
of securing his favor, and of avoiding his displeasure ; 
conducting every part of their education with ulti- 
mate reference to this end ; endeavoring to cultivate 
all those tempers and dispositions which are agree- 
able to his will, and to prepare them, as far as in 
your power, for the employments of heaven ? Do 
you study the directions which God has given you in 
his word, and frequently implore the assistance of his 



Selections from his Works. 291 

Holy Spirit in performing your arduous and respon- 
sible duties ? Do you pay more attention to the 
souls than to the bodies of your children ? do their 
spiritual maladies occasion you more distress than 
any infirmities of body, and are you more pained by 
observing in them wrong tempers and sinful passions 
than by seeing them awkward and unpolished in their 
intercourse with society ? Not only so ; do you 
esteem the education of the heart more important 
than that of the mind, and labor more earnestly to 
cherish correct moral feelings and suitable affections 
than to impart intellectual acquirements ? In a word, 
do your children see in your daily deportment, in 
your conversation, in your very looks, that all your 
aims and wishes respecting them are centered in the 
one great wish for their conversion ; that in com- 
parison with this, you regard no other object as of 
any importance, and that you would be content to 
see them poor, despised, and contemned in this 
world, if they might but secure eternal riches and an 
unfading crown in that which is to come ? If you 
are not at least attempting to do all this, you are not 
educating your children for God." 

A Whirlpool 

" If those whose example is only negatively bad, 
are guilty of the sin mentioned " — the sin of prevent- 
ing children from coming to Christ — "much more 
are those guilty whose example is positively bad. In 
this class are included all who profess wrong prin- 
ciples, or openly indulge in vicious practices. The 
open infidel, who denies or calls in question the 
divine authority of revelation ; the conceited infidel, 



292 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

who ridicules or explains away the most important 
doctrines ; the scoffer or profane swearer, who famil- 
iarizes the infant ear to the language of impiety, and 
teaches the untutored tongue to utter it ; the Sab- 
bath-breaker, who tramples on the barrier with which 
God has encircled the sacred day ; the liar or slan- 
derer, who by his example leads the young to trifle 
with truth and with the reputation of their fellow- 
creatures ; the slave to intemperance and sensuality, 
who seduces others into the paths of dissipation and 
excess, are all, I will not say indirectly, but directly, 
preventing the young from coming to Christ. Every 
such character does much to bar up the way of life, 
or is a stumbling-block over which many will stumble 
and fall to rise no more. And if he be one whose 
talents, wealth, learning, rank, or vivacity of manner 
gives him extensive influence in society, the pernicious 
effects of his example will be incalculable. Under his 
deadly shade no plants of purity will flourish, no flow- 
ers of virtue bloom. He breathes around contagion, 
pestilence, and death, and while he sinks into the abyss 
of vice and infidelity, the whirlpool which he forms will 
ingulf every thing that comes within its action. 

" But if he be a parent what shall we say ? If 
there be a sight on earth at which humanity must 
shudder — over which angels might weep — it is the 
sight of a young, a numerous family following with 
unsuspecting confidence a ruthless fiend in the shape 
of a parent, who extends the hand of a guide only to 
lead them far from Him who would gather them in 
his arms and carry them in his bosom ; and betrays 
the helpless lambs to that roaring lion who goes about 
seeking whom he may devour." 



Selections from his Works. 293 

The Power of Example Illustrated, 

" Mr. Baxter relates a story of a shepherd driving 
his flock over a high and narrow bridge built across 
a torrent. The foremost of the flock, terrified by 
some accidental occurrence, leaped over the bridge 
into the flood below ; the others, not seeing the dan- 
ger into which their leaders had fallen, and supposing 
they might safely follow them, leaped after them, one 
by one, till all were destroyed. In a similar manner, 
I suppose, generations of mankind perish. We have 
all, says the prophet, gone astray like sheep, and 
turned every one to his own way. The end of this 
way is destruction. Into this destruction all past 
sinners, who died impenitent, have already fallen. 
But we see not the gulf into which they have plunged ; 
and, like the foolish sheep, pursue with headlong im- 
petuosity the same road. Our children, supposing 
that they may safely follow where we lead the way, 
rush after us, and find too late we have guided them 
to their ruin : while their children in turn, unless 
grace prevent, will follow them in like manner to 
perdition. Thus, like a river whose waters are suc- 
cessively swallowed up in the ocean, one generation 
of men after another is led on blindfold by the influ- 
ence of example, and plunged into the gulf which has 
no bottom. Need any thing more be said to show 
the infinite importance of setting a good example 
before our children, and leading them after us in the 
path of life?" 

An Appeal to Baptized Children. 
"In giving you pious parents God has conferred 
on you one of the greatest blessings which he could 



294 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

bestow. He might have caused your souls to inhabit 
bodies among the heathen, where you would never have 
heard of a Saviour, where your parents would have 
dedicated you to false gods, and perhaps have offered 
you in sacrifice upon their altars ! And will you re- 
quite him for this favor by practically saying, I regret 
that my parents were pious, or that they dedicated 
me to God ; would I had been born in an irreligious 
family, where I should never have been troubled with 
religion or prayer, but where I might have indulged 
in the pursuit of worldly pleasures without interrup- 
tion or restraint ? Will you ungratefully undo all that 
your parents have done for your salvation, and tear 
yourselves out of the arms of the Saviour in which 
they have placed you ? Will those of you whose 
parents have ascended to heaven, do this ? If so, re- 
member that as your guilt will be no common guilt, 
so your punishment will be no common punishment. 
How awfully aggravated it will be, you may learn 
from the terrible threatenings denounced against the 
unbelieving Jews, who like you were children of the 
covenant. Christ declares that the very heathen will 
rise up against them in the day of judgment and con- 
demn them ; that it will be more tolerable for Sodom 
and Gomorrah in that day than for them ; and that 
while many shall come from the east and the west, 
and the north and the south, and sit down in the 
kingdom of God, the children of the kingdom shall 
be cast into outer darkness, where shall be weeping 
and gnashing of teeth. In a word, he tells us that 
they who know their Lord's will and do it not shall 
be beaten with many stripes. And will you, then, by 
refusing to turn from your iniquities, pull down upon 



Selections from his Works. 295 

yourselves this terrible fate ? Shall all the tears, 
prayers, and exertions of your parents only serve to 
increase your condemnation ? Shall the baptismal 
water with which you have been sprinkled be con- 
verted into drops of liquid fire ? Shall the blessings 
which Christ was sent to bring be transformed into 
curses ; and will you, to whom they are first offered, 
be the first to reject them ? You are like Caperna- 
um, raised, as it were, to heaven by your privileges. 
Will you, by abusing or neglecting them, be your- 
selves cast down to hell, to the lowest hell ? " 

Children Welcomed to the Fold of Christ. 

" Some of you, I hope, are ready to say to Christ's 
Church, as did Ruth to Naomi, Entreat us not to 
leave you, nor to return from following after you ; for 
where you go, we will go ; where you dwell, we will 
dwell ; your people shall be our people, and your 
God our God. The Lord do so to us, and more also, 
if aught but death part you and us. Farewell, vain 
world ! farewell, sinful pleasures ! farewell, sinful 
companions ! Our fathers' God calls us, our Saviour 
invites us, and we have determined to comply with 
the call, and cast in our lot among his people. And 
is this your determination ? this the sincere language 
of your hearts ? Welcome, then, ye once wandering 
lambs of the flock ; welcome to the fold of Christ ; 
welcome to his Church; welcome to the good and 
great Shepherd, who gathers the lambs with his arms 
and carries them in his bosom ! We bid you a thou- 
sand and a thousand welcomes to the ark of safety ; 
and while we congratulate you on your happy escape 
from the snares of the world and the toils of the 



296 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

tempter, we would unite with you in blessing Him 
who has set your sin-entangled feet at liberty, and 
inclined you to choose the wise, the better part. 
You now ratify what your parents have done in your 
name ; you consent to take their God for your God, 
and to give yourself up to him in the bonds of his 
everlasting covenant" 

Parents Guilty of the Sin of Eli, 

" Eli's sons made themselves vile and he restrained 
them not. It is not said that he set them a bad 
example. It is evident, on the contrary, that his ex- 
ample was good. Nor is he accused of neglecting to 
admonish them ; for we are told that he reproved 
them in a very solemn and affectionate manner, and 
warned them of the danger of continuing to pursue 
vicious courses. In this respect he was much less 
culpable than many parents at the present day ; for 
not a few set before their children an example posi- 
tively bad, and still more entirely neglect to admon- 
ish and reprove them. But though Eli admonished, 
he did not restrain his children. He did not employ 
the authority with which he was clothed as a parent, 
to prevent them from indulging their depraved in- 
clinations. This is the only sin of which he is ac- 
cused ; and yet this was sufficient to bring guilt 
and misery upon himself, and entail ruin upon his 
posterity. 

" Of the same sin those parents are now guilty who 
suffer their children to indulge, without restraint, 
those sinful propensities to which childhood and 
youth are but too subject ; and which, when indulged, 
render them vile in the sight of God. Among the 



Selections from his Works. 297 

practices which thus render children vile are, a quar- 
relsome, malicious disposition ; disregard to truth ; 
excessive indulgence of their appetites ; neglect of 
the Bible and religious institutions ; profanation of 
the Sabbath ; profane, scurrilous, or indecent lan- 
guage ; willful disobedience ; associating with openly- 
vicious company ; taking the property of their neigh- 
bors ; and idleness, which naturally leads to every- 
thing bad. From all these practices it is in the 
power of parents to restrain their children, in a very 
considerable degree, if they employ the proper means ; 
at least, it is in the power of all to make the attempt, 
and to persevere in it so long as children remain 
under the paternal roof; and those who neglect to 
do this, those who know, or who might know, that 
their children are beginning to practice any of these 
vices without steadily and perseveringly using all 
proper exertions to restrain and correct them, are 
guilty of the sin of Eli. Nor will a few occasional 
reproofs and admonitions given to children free par- 
ents from the guilt of partaking in their sins. No, 
they must be restrained ; restrained with a mild and 
prudent, but firm and steady hand ; restrained early, 
while they may be formed to habits of submission, 
obedience, and diligence ; and the reins of govern- 
ment must never for a moment be slackened, much 
less given up into their hands, as is too often the 
case. Nor will even this excuse those parents who 
neglect family religion, and the religious instruction 
of their children, and who do not frequently pray for 
the blessing of Heaven upon their endeavors. If we 
neglect our duty to our heavenly Father, we surely 
cannot wonder or complain if he suffers our children 



298 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

to neglect their duty to us ; nor, if we do not ask his 
blessing, have we any reason to complain should it 
be withheld. In this, as in other cases, exertion 
without prayer, and prayer without exertion, are 
equally vain. To sum up all in a word, every parent 
who is not as careful of the morals as he is of the 
health of his children ; every one who takes more 
care of the literary than of the moral and religious 
education of his children, is certainly guilty of the 
sin we are condemning. How much more criminal, 
then, are those parents who set before their children 
an irreligious or vicious example ; who join with the 
great enemy of their peace in tempting them to sin ; 
and thus, instead of restraining, inflame and strength- 
en their sinful propensities. The parent who starves 
or poisons his children is innocent, in the sight of 
God, compared with one who thus entices them into 
the path of ruin. ,, 

Consequences of Parental Unfaithfulness. 

" If parents indulge their children in infancy and 
childhood, and do not restrain them when they make 
themselves vile, it is almost impossible that they 
should not pursue courses and contract habits which 
will render them as bitterness to their fathers, and a 
sorrow of heart to those who bore them. If such 
parents are pious, their hearts will probably be grieved, 
and their eyes consumed with tears, to see their chil- 
dren rebelling against God and plunging into eternal 
ruin. If they are not pious, and care nothing for the 
future happiness of their children, they will still prob- 
ably have the grief of seeing them idle, dissolute, un- 
dutiful, bad husbands, bad fathers, and bad members 



Selections from his Works. 299 

of society ; for it can scarcely be expected that he 
who is a bad son will act his part well in any other 
relation of life. Especially will such parents usually 
meet with unkindness and neglect from their chil- 
dren if they live to be dependent on them in their 
old age. It is in this, as in almost every other in- 
stance, the case that as a man sows so he must reap. 
They that sow the seeds of vice in the minds of their 
children, or who suffer them to be sown by others, 
and to grow without restraint, will almost invariably 
be compelled to reap, and to eat, with many tears, the 
bitter harvest which those seeds tend to produce." 

God's Moral Government Over Nations, 

" It is indispensably necessary to the perfection 
of God's moral government that it should extend to 
nations and communities as well as to individuals. 
This, I conceive, is too evident to require proof; for 
how could God be considered the moral governor of 
the world if nations and communities were exempt 
from his government ? Again, if God is to exercise 
a moral government over nations and communities, 
by rewarding or punishing them according to their 
works, the rewards and punishments must evidently 
be dispensed in this world ; for nations and com- 
munities will not exist, as such, in the world to come. 
In that world God must deal with men considered 
simply as individuals. Further, it seems evidently 
proper that communities as well as individuals should 
have a time of trial and probation allowed them ; that 
if the first generation prove sinful the community 
should not be immediately destroyed, but the punish- 
ment suspended, till it be seen whether the nation 



300 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

will prove incorrigible, or whether some succeeding 
generation will not repent of the national sins and 
thus avert national judgments. Now it is evident 
that if God thus waits upon nations, as he does upon 
individuals, and allows them a season of probation, a 
space for repentance, he cannot destroy them until 
many generations of sinners are laid in their graves. 
Besides, by thus suspending the rod or the sword 
over a nation, he presents to it powerful inducements 
to reform. He appeals to parental feelings, to men's 
affection for their posterity, and endeavors to deter 
them from sin by the assurance that their posterity 
will suffer for it. In connection with these remarks, 
we must recollect, what has been already stated, that 
God never punishes a generation for the sins of its 
ancestors, unless it imitates their conduct, unless it 
is guilty of similar or more aggravated offenses, and 
thus justifies the wicked conduct of preceding gen- 
erations. Besides, as sinful nations, like individuals, 
if they do not reform usually become worse, it will 
ever be found that the last days of a nation are its 
worst days, and that the generation which is destroyed 
is more abandoned than all preceding generations. 
I will only add, that when God forsakes or destroys a 
nation for its national sins, he does not inflict more 
upon that generation which is destroyed than its own 
sins deserve, though he punishes them more severely 
than he would have done were it not for the guilt 
which had accumulated by the preceding generations." 

The Crime of Perjury a National One. 

" No other nation can boast of such ancestors, to 
no other nation has so small a share of guilt been 



Selections from his Works. 301 

transmitted by its founders. But it is too evident to 
require proof, that our immediate ancestors have 
sunk very far below the standard of their forefathers. 
The progress of those vices which principally tend 
to draw down divine judgments upon a people has 
been constant, rapid, and highly alarming. Dissipa- 
tion, intemperance, profanation of the Sabbath, neg- 
lect of divine institutions, and profane language, have 
burst in upon us like an overwhelming flood. The 
prevalence of perjury, or false swearing, is, if possible, 
still more alarming. To say nothing of the little 
regard paid in many cases to oaths of office, how ter- 
ribly have our commercial transactions, for some 
years, been polluted by this crime ! Of what pal- 
pable perjuries have great numbers of our fellow- 
citizens been guilty, both at home and in foreign 
lands ; and how largely have those who employed 
them participated in the guilt ! We may think little 
of this, and flatter ourselves that customary oaths 
are trifles ; but be assured, my hearers, that when 
God is, on any occasion, called to bear witness to a 
transaction, he witnesses it ; and woe be to the 
wretch who calls upon the God of truth to bear wit- 
ness to a lie ! God will not hold him guiltless who 
taketh his name in vain ; nor will he hold a nation 
or community guiltless in which this sin prevails. 
Even you, my hearers, would think it the greatest of 
insults should a man impudently call upon you to 
testify to the truth of a known lie. With what feel- 
ings, then, must the God of truth hear himself so 
frequently called upon to bear such testimony ? " 



302 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

A Solemn Caution to Young Men. 

"Look around, and you will see on every side 
young men whom appetites and passions are plung- 
ing into intemperance, sensuality, and every species 
of vicious excess, and thus ruining them, not only 
for the future but for the present world. You see 
them forming habits whose chains it will be exceed- 
ingly difficult for them to break, and which, unless 
broken, will drag them away to destruction. And 
no young man can have any security that he shall 
not be left to form such habits, unless he obtains that 
security which is afforded by God's sanctifying grace 
and pardoning mercy ; unless he early commits him- 
self to that great and good Shepherd who has en- 
gaged to preserve all his sheep. Until this is done 
he is at the mercy of every gust of temptation, every 
sudden sally of appetite and passion. It is in vain 
that in his sober moments he resolves not to yield to 
temptation. How little such resolutions, how little 
any human restraints, avail to secure him, melan- 
choly observation but too clearly shows. How many 
promising young men have we seen who, while they 
remained under the parental roof, were moral, correct, 
and apparently fortified against temptation ; but who, 
when they were removed from it, fell an easy prey to 
temptation, and sunk into the arms of vicious indul- 
gence ! And how many have we seen who, after 
passing safely through the dangerous period of youth, 
became the wretched victims of intemperance in man- 
hood. Presume not then, young man, upon thine 
own strength. When so many others have fallen 
thou mayest fall. Against such a fall thou canst 



Selections from his Works. 303 

have no security until thou obtainest the protection 
of God." 

Evils Avoided by Early Piety. 

"A man who does not become religious till the 
season of youth is passed away must of course spend 
all the early part of life in sin. And what will be 
the consequence ? He will commit many sins, the 
recollection of which must be painful to him as long 
as he lives ; he will lose much time and many pre- 
cious opportunities of improvement and of doing 
good, which he will afterward regret ; he will afford 
his sinful propensities an opportunity to become 
strong ; and it will, of course, be more difficult to 
subdue them, and his future conflicts will be more 
severe. His imagination will be polluted, and the 
consequences will trouble him as long as he lives. 

" He will, probably, in some degree at least, be a 
tempter of others, and the recollection of this will be 
bitter as wormwood and gall. He can never have 
the satisfaction of reflecting that he gave God his 
first, and earliest, and best, affections ; that when the 
world was all fresh and gay, and smiling around him, 
he cheerfully forsook all to follow Christ. On the 
contrary, it must pain him to reflect that he did not 
forsake the world till he had proved its emptiness ; 
that he did not follow Christ until experience taught 
him that there was nothing else worth following. 
We may add, that the man who is not converted un- 
til a late period will, more than probably, indulge in 
vices, or form habits which will cause him much un- 
happiness through life. Nay more, it will not be at 
all strange should he injure his health and undermine 



304 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

his constitution, and have nothing left to offer to 
God but a diseased body and an enfeebled mind." 

The Sublime Contrast. 

" How noble, how dignified, how sublime, does the 
character of Daniel appear ! That you may see this 
in its true light, bring him forward and compare him 
with the nobles, princes, and great ones of Babylon. 
See them indulging in sensual pleasures, proud of 
their wealth and birth, panting for riches, honor, and 
applause ; seeking these transitory trifles by every 
possible means, neglecting immortal honors and 
glories, and meanly envying and hating that excel- 
lence which they could not reach. See Daniel, on 
the contrary, calm, firm, and self-collected ; with an 
eye fixed on God and heaven, despising the trifles 
which they pursued, aiming at the glory of his Maker 
and the happiness of his fellow-creatures, and follow- 
ing, with unconquerable, undeviating resolution the 
path of duty. While they groveled on the earth, his 
head and his heart were in heaven ; — while their 
minds were darkened by the clouds of ignorance and 
prejudice, and their breasts convulsed by the storms 
of ambition, avarice, envy, and revenge, his exalted 
soul dwelt in regions of eternal day, far above the 
clouds of mental ignorance and the storms of con- 
tending passions. That you may still more clearly 
discern the superiority of his character, compare him 
with the kings whom he served. See Belshazzar, 
making a great feast to a thousand of his lords, and 
surrounded by every thing which could dazzle or de- 
light the senses. See Nebuchadnezzar, walking in 
the midst of his palace, reflecting with self-compla- 



Selections from his Works. 305 

cency on the nations he had subdued, and proudly 
exclaiming, ' Is not this great Babylon that I have 
built, for the house of the kingdom, by the might of 
my power, and for the honor of my majesty ?' Then 
turn your eyes to the prophet. See him, with that 
heroic boldness which nothing but true piety can 
give, reproving the pride of one of these kings, and 
the impious extravagance of the other ; see him, in 
defiance of threats and impending danger, bending 
his knees to the only Being whom he feared ; see 
him, with unshaken calmness and serenity, sitting in 
the midst of ravenous lions, who, like lambs, crouch 
at his feet ; — and then say which was the more digni- 
fied character, he or the proud kings of Babylon. 
Nay more, say which possessed the more enviable 
titles and honors ; he or they ? They were styled 
princes on earth. But he, as a prince, had power 
with God and prevailed. They were honored, ad- 
mired, and applauded by their fellow-worms ; but he 
was greatly beloved by his God. Who would not be 
Daniel in the lion's den, rather than Belshazzar at his 
feast, or Nebuchadnezzar on his golden throne ? O 
how evidently does it, in this instance, appear, that 
the righteous is more excellent than his neighbor ! " 

Sound and Important Views for Voters. 

" Subjects who have the privilege of choosing their 
own rulers and magistrates make themselves par- 
takers of all their sins when they give their votes for 
vicious or irreligious characters. I hope, my hearers, 
it is not necessary to assure you that this remark has 
no party political bearing. In making it I certainly 

do not mean to censure one party more than another, 

20 



306 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

nor do I intend the most distant allusion to any of 
our rulers or magistrates ; for I am taught not to 
speak evil of dignities. I merely state it as an abstract 
principle, which cannot be denied without denying 
the truth of Scripture, that when we vote for vicious 
or irreligious men, knowing them, or having good 
reason to suspect them to be such, we make our- 
selves partakers of all their sins. If Timothy made 
himself a partaker of the sins of every unworthy 
character whom he carelessly admitted into the min- 
isterial office, then we certainly make ourselves par- 
takers of the sins of every improper character whom 
we voluntarily assist in appointing to any public 
office. But as many, even among good men, do not 
appear to think sufficiently of this truth, it may not 
be improper to insist upon it more particularly. 

"In the first place, God has plainly described the 
characters whom we ought to choose for rulers and 
magistrates. ' Thou shalt provide out of all the peo- 
ple able men, such as fear God, men of truth and 
hating covetousness, and place such to be rulers/ 
And again, ' He that ruleth over men must be just, 
ruling in the fear of God/ He has also told us, that 
when the righteous are in authority the people re- 
joice, but that when the wicked bear rule the people 
mourn. If, then, we choose different men for our 
rulers, we slight God's counsels and disobey his 
commands. 

" Again : We are taught in the Scriptures that we 
must give an account to God of the manner in which 
we employ the talents and improve the privileges 
with which he favors us. Now the right of choosing 
our own rulers is undoubtedly a most precious privi- 



Selections from his Works. 307 

lege. This, I presume, you will readily acknowledge ; 
for we frequently hear of the precious right of suf- 
frage. Now what account of this privilege can they 
give to God who have abused it, by assisting to place 
in authority such characters as he has forbidden us 
to appoint ? 

" Once more ; rulers and magistrates are servants 
to the public. Now it is an admitted axiom that 
what a man does by his servant he does by himself. 
If, then, we voluntarily assist in appointing vicious 
or irreligious rulers, we make ourselves partakers of 
all their sins, and must account for all the good which 
might have been done had we chosen different 
characters." 

Responsibility of Legislators and Magistrates. 

1 " Their responsibility is greater than that of other 
men. They have greater opportunities of doing both 
good and evil than other men. If they do good, they 
will do much good. If the influence of their example 
and their exertions be thrown on the side of truth 
and goodness, no one can compute how great or how 
lasting may be the salutary effects which they will 
produce. On the contrary, if they do evil they will 
do much evil. They will, like Jeroboam, make people 
to sin. We are informed by an inspired writer that 
one sinner destroyeth much good. This remark is 
true of every sinner ; but it is most emphatically true 
of sinners who are placed in authority. One such 
sinner may destroy more good, and prove the cause 
of more evil, than a whole generation of sinners who 
are placed in a lower sphere. And even if they do 
not actually do evil, they may occasion great guilt, 



308 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

by neglecting to do good. Says the voice of inspira- 
tion, ' To him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it 
not, to him it is sin/ In another place we are taught 
that men partake in the guilt of all those sins which 
they might have prevented. Legislators, rulers, and 
magistrates, then, are answerable to God for all the 
possible good which they neglect to do ; and they 
share in the guilt of all the sins which they might, 
but do not, prevent. So far as those who are invest- 
ed with authority neglect to prevent, to the utmost 
of their power, open impiety, irreligion, disregard of 
the Sabbath and of divine institutions, profanation of 
God's name, intemperance, and other similar evils, 
they share in the sinfulness and guilt of every Sab- 
bath-breaker, profane swearer, and drunkard, among 
those over whom they are placed. 

" How great, then, is the responsibility of all who 
are invested either with legislative, judicial, or execu- 
tive authority ! How aggravated will be their guilt, 
how terrible their punishment, should they prove un- 
faithful to their country and their God ! " 

Mutual Love Between Christ and his People. 

" He knows that his people love him, and he knows 
how much they love him. He knows that he is pre- 
cious to their souls ; more precious than the air they 
breathe, than the light of heaven. He knows that 
they love him better than father or mother, husband 
or wife, brother or sister, son or daughter, yea, far 
better than their own lives ; and that for his sake 
they are ready to renounce and forsake them all. 
He knows that his love sweetly constrains them to 
live to his service, and that they rejoice when they 



Selections from his Works. 309 

are counted worthy to suffer pain and shame for his 
name. He knows that they look upon him as their 
Redeemer, their Friend, their Shepherd, their Physi- 
cian, their Advocate, their Wisdom, their Strength, 
their Life, and their All ; that the enjoyment of his 
presence and favor constitutes all their felicity ; that 
they consider no earthly affliction comparable to his 
absence or displeasure, and that the weakness of their 
love to him is their constant grief and shame. He 
knows that they prefer him to themselves, that they 
wish for a heavenly crown only that they may throw 
it down at his feet ; and that the principal reason 
why they desire heaven is, that they may see, and 
serve, and praise him, and ascribe all the glory of 
their salvation to him. And how then can he refrain 
from loving those who thus love him ; whom he has 
himself taught to love him. With what an unutter- 
able emotion of mingled pity, sympathy, and love 
must he look down on those who are thus attached 
to him in the midst of a rebellious world, and who 
for his sake are denying themselves, taking up the 
cross, and striving to follow him in defiance of all the 
inward and outward opposition which they are called 
to encounter ? Hear what he says to such : ' I know 
thy works, I have set before thee an open door, and 
no man can shut it ; for thou hast a little strength, 
and hast kept my word, and hast not denied my 
name. Because thou hast kept the word of my pa- 
tience, I also will keep thee in the hour of temptation 
which will come on all the earth, and I will cause 
thine adversaries to come and worship before thy 
feet, and to know that I have loved thee/ " 



310 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

The Happiness of Loving and Being Loved, 

" How happy are they who love. It has been 
often and justly observed, that to love and to be be- 
loved by a deserving earthly friend affords the great- 
est happiness which the world can give. What 
happiness, then, must they enjoy who love and are 
beloved by the infinite fountain of love, — God's eter- 
nal Son, the brightness of his glory, the possessor of 
all power in heaven and earth ; source of every thing 
amiable and excellent in the universe. What pure, 
ineffable, exalted delight must they find in com- 
munion with such a friend ; and what indescribable 
benefits must they receive from his love ! What can 
created minds conceive of, what can the heart form 
a wish for, beyond the friendship of such a being ? 
Nay, what creature could have dared to raise his 
wishes so high, had not God himself encouraged us 
to do it ? O, it is too, too much ! not too much, in- 
deed, for God to give, but far too much for man to 
deserve. But in vain do we attempt to give you 
adequate ideas of the happiness resulting from the 
love of Christ. It is one of those things which it is 
impossible for man to utter; and the joy which it 
produces is a joy unspeakable. If any would know 
it, they must learn it, not from language, but from 
their own experience, for language sinks under the 
weight of a subject which it was never intended to 
describe. We can only say, that to love and be be- 
loved by Christ is the very essence of heaven." 



Selections from his Works. 311 

The Infidel Met on his Own Ground. 

"It is safe to believe that the Scriptures are a 
revelation from God, and that those who wrote them 
were inspired. This, it is presumed, no infidel will 
deny. No infidel will pretend that we expose our- 
selves to any evil or danger in a future state by be- 
lieving the Scriptures to be the word of God, even 
though it should prove that they are not so ; for be- 
lieving them does not lead to the neglect of any duty 
which infidels regard as necessary to the attainment 
of future happiness. Allowing, then, for argument's 
sake, that they should prove not to be a revelation 
from God ; those who believed that they were so 
will still stand on as safe ground as those who re- 
jected them. It is, then, safe to believe the Script- 
ures. But it is not safe to disbelieve them ; for if 
they are the word of God, all who do not receive them 
as such will perish. And no one will deny that it is 
possible they may be the word of God. No one can, 
with the least shadow of reason, pretend that it is 
not probable they are so. A book which thousands 
of the learned and the wise, after a thorough exam- 
ination, have received as a revelation from Heaven, 
must be supported by proofs of no common strength. 
Taking the infidel, then, on his own ground, it is by 
no means safe to reject the Scriptures. He who 
rejects them is far from walking safely. 

" It is safe to believe in the immortality of the 
soul, and in a future state of retribution. This asser- 
tion requires no proof; for it is impossible that any 
future evil or danger should result from believing 
these doctrines, even if they are not true. If the 



312 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

soul is not immortal, if there is no future state, they 
who believed and they who disbelieved these doc- 
trines will alike cease to exist at death. On the other 
hand, it is not safe to disbelieve these doctrines. 
Even those who disbelieve them must allow that they 
may possibly be true ; nay, that there is some proba- 
bility of their truth. And if they are true, the con- 
sequences of disbelieving them will be terrible ; for 
he who does not believe that his soul is immortal 
will take no care of it ; and he who does not believe 
in a future state of retribution will make no prepara- 
tion for it, and will, of course, die unprepared. He, 
then, who disbelieves these doctrines does not walk 
safely." 

Safety of Believing in the Divinity of Christ. 

" It is safe to believe in the proper divinity of Jesus 
Christ. Some may deny this assertion, on the ground 
that if Christ is not God, to worship him as such will 
involve us in the guilt of idolatry. But whether he 
is or is not God, it is certainly our duty to worship 
him. We are commanded to honor him even as we 
honor the Father ; and we are told that when the 
Father brought him into the world, he said, ' Let all 
the angels of God worship him.' If it is the duty of 
all the angels to worship him, much more, we may 
conclude, is it ours. Nor, among all the cautions 
which are given us in the Scriptures, is there the 
least intimation that we must beware of loving and 
honoring Christ too much, or that there is any dan- 
ger of placing him too high. Indeed, it would be 
strange if there were such intimation, for why should 
we be cautioned against worshiping one who is wor- 



Selections from his Works. 313 

shiped in heaven, and who shares with his Father 
the praises of its inhabitants ? In fine, if it is safe 
to obey God, to imitate the apostles, to utter the lan- 
guage of heaven, then it is safe to worship Jesus 
Christ. And if it is safe to worship him, it cannot 
be unsafe to believe that he is God. You cannot sup- 
pose that any man will be condemned at the judg- 
ment day for thinking too highly of his Saviour, or 
loving and honoring him too much. But if Christ is 
God, it is by no means equally safe to disbelieve that 
he is so. If the doctrine of his proper divinity is true, 
it must be a fundamental doctrine, a doctrine the be- 
lief of which is necessary to render us Christ's. This 
Dr. Priestly, the great apostle of Unitarianism, has 
acknowledged. ' If you are right/ said he to a distin- 
guished clergyman in this country, who believed our 
Saviour's divinity — ' if you are right, we are not Chris- 
tians at all, and I do not wonder in the least at the 
bad opinion you entertain of us.' And is there not 
at least a probability that those who believe Christ's 
divinity are right ? Do not many inspired passages 
appear to assert it in the most unequivocal terms ? 
And since no evils can result from believing it, even 
though it should not prove to be true, while the most 
terrible evils will be the consequence of disbelieving 
it, if it is true, is it not the safer and wiser course to 
believe it ? " 

An Objection Answered. 

" It is safe to believe that Christ has made an 
atonement for sin, and that we must be justified by 
faith in him, and not by our own works. From a be- 
lief of these doctrines, rightly understood, no evil or 



314 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

danger can result, even if they are not true. It has, 
indeed, been asserted that these doctrines are unfa- 
vorable to morality, but the assertion is groundless ; 
for all who believe that we are justified by faith in 
Christ believe that this faith will produce good works, 
and that a faith which does not produce them cannot 
be genuine. They believe that good works are as 
necessary to our salvation as if we were actually 
justified by performing them. In fine, they believe 
that without holiness no man shall see the Lord. 
This being the case, it is impossible that their reli- 
ance on the atonement and righteousness of Christ 
should make them negligent of moral duties. Nor 
can it be shown that the belief of these doctrines 
occasions any other evil, or exposes them that believe, 
either here or hereafter, to any danger. It is, then, 
safe to believe them even if they are not true. But 
it is very unsafe to disbelieve them if they are true. 
A mistake respecting the terms of acceptance, the 
way of salvation, must be fatal, if any mistake can be 
so. Those who make the mistake incur the guilt, 
and expose themselves to the fate, of the Jews, who, 
being ignorant of God's righteousness, went about to 
establish their own righteousness, and thus failed of 
salvation. One of the most zealous advocates of the 
doctrine that we are justified by our own works, after 
writing a large volume in support of it concludes with 
this remarkable concession, ' Nevertheless, since we 
are prone to estimate our good works too highly, and 
fancy that they are sufficient for our justification 
when in fact they are not so, the safer way is to re- 
nounce all dependence on them, and rely on the 
righteousness of Christ alone/ " 



Selections from his Works. 315 

The Safe Side. 

" It is safe to believe that all men will not be saved, 
and that without repentance, faith, and holiness, none 
will be saved. To prove this little need be said. If 
the doctrine that all men will inherit salvation is true, 
those who deny are as safe as those who believe it. 
If it is not true, those who trust in it trust to a lie, 
and will utterly perish in their own deceivings. And 
even its warmest advocates must allow that there is 
at least a possibility of its proving false. No man 
then walks safely who ventures his soul, his all, upon 
its truth." 

" How Can a Man Be Too Religious?" 

" How can a man be too religious ? How can any 
man go beyond the precepts which require him to love 
God with all his heart ; to do every thing to his glory ; 
to renounce every thing which causes him to sin, 
though dear as a right hand or a right eye ; to crucify 
the affections and lusts ; to deny himself, take up the 
cross, and to be holy as God is holy ? How can any 
man be more humble, prayerful, thankful, and heav- 
enly-minded than the Scriptures require him to be? 
And even if it were possible to do more than our duty, 
could any harm result from doing it? Would God 
punish a man for being too religious, for loving him 
too well, and serving him too faithfully? Did you 
ever hear of a man who, on his dying bed, repented 
of having paid so much attention to religion, or who 
expressed any fears that God would be displeased 
with him on account of his zeal and devotion ? Did 
you ever hear of a man's saying, in such circum- 



316 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

stances, Were I to live my life over again, I would 
be less strict and scrupulous than I have been, in 
obeying the divine commands ? On the contrary, do 
not even the most pious reproach themselves in a 
dying hour for their deficiencies ; and say, Were we 
to pass through the world again, we would strive to 
be more faithful and more devoted to God ? Surely, 
then, there is no danger of being too religious. 
Surely the strict course is the safe course. Even if 
those who pursue it go further than is absolutely 
necessary, yet their salvation is sure. In a word, 
they are safe, even if their opponents are right. But 
the same cannot be said of the opposite course. If 
the former are right, the latter are fatally wrong. 
Though it is not easy to conceive of a man having 
too much religion, we can easily conceive of a man 
•having too little. Though it is impossible to believe 
that any one will be punished for going beyond what 
God requires of us, it is very possible that many may 
be punished for falling short of it. He only, then 
who walks strictly, walks safely." 

The World We Live In. 

" We live in a changeable world, where nothing is 
stable, where nothing is certain, where every thing 
is changing, or dissolving, or passing away ; a world 
which, with all its works, is destined to be burned 
up, and from which we must soon be removed. And 
is such a world a suitable portion for immortal be- 
ings ; a proper place in which to lay up treasures, or 
on which to rest our hopes ? Might we not as easily 
employ our time and exertions in building upon a 
quicksand, or upon ice which the summer's sun will 



Selections from his Works. 317 

melt away? Again, the world in which we live is a 
sinful, and of course a dying, world, which lies in 
wickedness under its Maker's curse, on which the 
vials of his wrath are constantly poured out, and 
from which thousands are daily swept away to the 
retributions of eternity. We live in a prison, where 
rebels against heaven's King are awaiting their sen- 
tence ; in a place of execution, where fire and sword, 
pestilence and famine, disease and death, have for 
ages been employed in executing the sentence of 
God's law upon transgressors ; in a grave-yard, where 
lie buried the many successive generations of sinners 
upon whom the sentence has been executed. We 
live surrounded by the dying and the dead ; we 
strive to enrich ourselves with treasures which they 
have left behind ; treasures for which many of them 
bartered their salvation, and which are, therefore, the 
price of blood, the blood of immortal souls. We live 
in a world in which multitudes of intelligent beings 
are daily commencing their existence, an existence 
which is never to end ; in which still greater multi- 
tudes are constantly ripening for heaven or for hell ; 
and from which thousands are daily going to one or 
the other of those endless abodes. And is such a 
world a proper place in which to seek great things 
for ourselves ? Can the fires of avarice or ambition 
glow in the midst of so many things which are calcu- 
lated to extinguish them ? We sometimes read of 
wretches who, when a city is wrapped in flames or 
overturned by an earthquake, rush among the blazing 
ruins or the falling houses in search of plunder. We 
read of others, who follow the march of armies, and 
hover around a field of battle with a view to strip the 



3 18 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

bodies of the dying and the dead. We wonder at 
their insensibility ; but alas ! my friends, our conduct, 
while we seek great things for ourselves in such a 
world as this, proves that we are equally insensible. 
We rush on in the mad pursuit of worldly objects, 
surrounded by dangers, diseases, and death, with the 
earth trembling, and the grave ready to open under 
our feet. We follow in the rear of an immense army 
of our fellow-creatures, who have all advanced to 
grapple with the king of terrors, and have all fallen 
in the unequal combat. We are hastening to en- 
counter the same enemy, with an assurance of meet- 
ing the same fate ; yet we eagerly seize the spoils 
which the dead have left scattered on the field of 
battle ; we are ready to contend and quarrel for their 
possessions, and take no means to prepare for the 
contest in which we must soon engage with the last 
enemy, who will strip us of all we have so hardly and 
laboriously acquired." 

Christmas Thoughts. 

" That a Being possessed of infinite wisdom, power, 
and goodness should create a world, or many worlds, 
is nothing very wonderful or surprising. But that 
after he had created it, and after its inhabitants had 
revolted from him, he should visit it — visit it in a 
human form, in the likeness of sinful flesh — that he 
should enter it, not as the Ancient of Days but as an 
infant — live in it, not as its Sovereign and Proprietor 
but as a servant, a dependent on the bounty of his 
own creatures — and above all that he should die in 
it, die in it as a malefactor, on a cross, between two 
thieves — that this earth should not only have been 



i 



Selections from his Works. 319 

pressed by its Creator's footsteps, but wet with his 
tears, and stained with his blood — these are wonders 
indeed ; wonders which would be utterly incredible 
had not God himself revealed them ; wonders which 
will still be regarded as incredible by all who forget 
that God is wonderful in working, and that as high 
as the heavens are above the earth, so high are his 
ways above our ways, and his thoughts above our 
thoughts. No wonder that angels should desire to 
look into these things. No wonder that they left 
heaven in multitudes to visit our world when their 
Creator and their Lord lay an infant in a manger. 
No wonder that raptures and ecstasies unfelt before 
swelled their bosoms, and called for new songs to 
express them. The wonder is that man, stupid, in- 
sensible man, should be no more affected by this 
event ; that he should regard it without interest, and 
almost fall asleep while he hears it described. It is 
not thus, when events comparatively trifling solicit 
his attention. Let the King of Great Britain visit 
his Irish and Scottish dominions, and the whole 
world rings with it. Let the President of these 
States come among us, and every house pours out 
its inmates to welcome or to gaze. Let a comet 
blaze athwart the sky, and thousands of sleepless 
eyes are open to watch the ethereal stranger. But 
let the Creator, the Eternal Sovereign of the uni- 
verse, by whom and for whom all things were made, 
come in the most interesting form to visit this rebell- 
ious province of his dominions, and how few are 
found who even trouble themselves to ask whence 
he comes or what is his object ; how much fewer 
to give him the welcome which he had a right to 



320 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

expect ! My hearers, how strange is this : and how 
strange it is that we cannot see and blush at our own 
stupidity. Why is this event, which will cause the 
name of our world to resound through the whole 
created universe of God, and to be had in everlasting 
remembrance, regarded with such indifference ? This 
world itself will soon, with all its works, be burned 
up. Its place in the heavens will know it no more. 
Not even a wreck will remain to remind future orbs 
that here once rolled the planet called Earth ; and 
its very existence would at length fade away from 
the memories of all except its former inhabitants ! 
but the fact mentioned in our text will preserve its 
name from oblivion, and through eternal ages it will 
be remembered as the world which its Creator visited 
and for which he died. And for similar reasons its 
inhabitants, the posterity of Adam, will be objects 
of intense interest and curiosity to holy beings through 
interminable ages. Show me a man, show me one 
of that race for which my Creator died ! show me one 
of those he redeemed by his blood ! will, we may 
suppose, be one of the first exclamations of all who 
through the ages of eternity shall from various parts 
of Jehovah's dominions enter heaven." 

The Certainty of Unseen Things, 

" You sometimes say, at least in your hearts, No 
man has ever returned from the other world to give 
us any information of what awaits us there, or even 
to assure us of its existence. We cannot, then, be 
certain that there is another world, or a day of judg- 
ment, or a heaven, or a hell. If, indeed, one would 
rise from the dead, and assure us that he had seen 



Selections from his Works. 321 

and known all these things, we might believe. But, 
my hearers, something far more satisfactory than this 
has been done. Not a man merely, but the Son of 
God, our Creator, our future Judge, has come from 
the other world to this on purpose to reveal it to us, 
to bring life and immortality to light. He came di- 
rectly from the bosom of his Father, and is therefore 
intimately acquainted with all his counsels and de- 
signs. He came from that very heaven which he 
revealed to us ; and lest we should refuse to give 
him credit, he by his miracles fixed the broad seal of 
heaven to his doctrines. Lest even this should be 
insufficient, the eternal Father, by an audible voice 
from heaven, exclaimed, ' This is my beloved Son ; 
hear ye him ! ' that is, yield full credit to all which 
he reveals ; yield implicit obedience to all his com- 
mands. And how much better, how much more 
satisfactory is this, than would be the report of some 
fallible mortal returning from the other world, who 
might be deceived himself, or willfully deceive us. 
My hearers, if you will not yield to this evidence, if 
you will not believe the Lord Jesus Christ who came 
from heaven, and is returned to heaven, most cer- 
tainly you would not be persuaded though one rose 
from the dead. You must, however, do as you please ; 
but for us — I speak in the name of all his real dis- 
ciples — until you can show us a better, a more in- 
fallible Teacher, we must and will follow him. Nor 
are we ashamed to avow our faith. No ; we exult 
and glory in it. We triumph while we point to the 
strong foundations of our belief, and build upon them 
our eternal hopes. We can look up and say to our 

ascended Saviour, Lord, we believe and are sure that 

21 



322 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. And 
we know experimentally the truth of the apostle's 
assertion, ' He that believeth on the Son of God hath 
the witness in himself;' a witness which cannot de- 
ceive him. Tell us not, then, of the vain opinions, 
the endless conjectures of ignorant, fallible, short- 
sighted men, groping in midnight darkness. Tell 'us 
not of conjectures when we have certainty. Every 
thing which Christ has revealed respecting the other 
world is fixed, established, certain. It is no longer a 
matter of doubt or dispute. We rely upon it, as if 
we had ourselves visited the other world and seen all 
which he reveals. We venture our all upon it. We 
renounce things which we have seen for things which 
we have not seen ; and while we believe, we find our 
Saviours declaration verified, I am come a light into 
the world, that he who believeth in me should not 
walk in darkness but have the light of life. Hence, 
too, we firmly believe that he will again visit our 
world as its Judge ; that to them who look and wait 
for him he will appear the second time without sin 
unto salvation. He has assured us that he will, and 
we can rely confidently upon his word. Nor is it, 
even humanly speaking, one half so improbable that 
he will come the second time, as it was that he would 
come the first. It appears far less astonishing that 
he should come as God to judge the world, than 
that he should come as man to die for the world. 
And being assured that he did come once, we feel 
assured that he will come again." 



Selections from his Works. 323 

" Holiness to the Lord, " 

" That we may understand the import of this ex- 
pression, it is necessary to recollect that, when the 
Jewish high priest was engaged in the duties of his 
sacred office, and especially when he went into the 
holy of holies to burn incense, he was commanded to 
wear upon his forehead a golden miter with the 
words Holiness to the Lord engraven upon it. By 
this inscription both the high priest himself, and all 
who read it, were forcibly reminded that the God 
whom he served was a holy God, and that holiness 
becomes his house, his service, and his worshipers 
forever. If he ever felt serious and devout, it would 
be when he wore this inscription upon his forehead. 
But in the day of which we are speaking, this inscrip- 
tion shall be upon the harness of the horses, and upon 
the utensils employed in domestic life ; that is, as we 
have already observed, upon all the daily business 
and employments of both sexes. We are not, how- 
ever, to suppose that the letters which compose these 
words are actually to be written there. The meaning 
of this prediction evidently is, that, while persons are 
engaged in all the common business and concerns of 
life, whether at home or abroad, whether in the house 
or by the way, they shall feel as serious, as devout, 
as much engaged in the service of God, as did the 
Jewish high priest when he wore that sacred inscrip- 
tion upon his forehead. The merchant at his desk, 
the mechanic in his shop, the mariner in his vessel, 
the husbandman in his field, the traveler on his jour- 
ney, and the female at home shall have such a con- 
stant, realizing sense of the presence and perfections 



324 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

of God, and such love, confidence, and reverence in 
exercise toward him, as will lead them to do every 
thing in a holy manner and with a view to his glory. 
Every thing will then be sanctified by the word of 
God and prayer. Religion will then not be confined, 
as it too often is now, to the closet and the house of 
God ; but she will walk abroad, pervading every place 
with her blessed influence, and cheering happy man 
in all his employments with her heavenly smiles and 
heart-enlivening consolations. Men will then labor 
as Adam did in paradise, where labor was rest, and 
employment, and pleasure. Friends and acquaint- 
ances will then meet, as Christians now meet, to 
serve and praise God ; every meeting will be a relig- 
ious meeting ; men will then speak of the things of 
God, as the Jews were commanded to do, in the 
house and by the way, when they sit down and when 
they rise up, and conversation on earth will be like 
the converse of saints and angels in heaven. 

"Then there will be no idle or profane language, 
no evil speaking or slander heard ; for the law of love 
will be in the heart, and, of course, the law of kind- 
ness will dwell on the lips. Then, too, the press, as 
well as the tongue, will be sanctified. As men will 
learn war, so the press will tell of war, no more ; but 
periodical publications will then spread abroad the 
politics, the laws, and the triumphs of the Redeemer's 
kingdom. Books will no longer contain poison for 
the soul, or fuel for hateful passions ; but be streams 
flowing from the fountains of life and truth. Then, 
too, all the domestic relations will be sanctified. 
Husbands and wives, parents and children, brothers 
and sisters, masters and servants will then love out 



Selections from his Works. 325 

of a pure heart fervently, as members of the same 
body and fellow-heirs of the same heaven. Suffice it 
to say, that all the common affairs of life will then be 
performed better than the most sacred religious duties 
now are. Thus every thing will be turned to gold. 
Some faint traces of such a state of things, faint how- 
ever indeed, we find in the better ages of the Jewish 
commonwealth. For instance, when Boaz visited his 
reapers in the field, we find him saying to them, The 
Lord be with you ; while they replied to him, The 
Lord bless thee. Such will be the language univer- 
sally heard in the day of which we are speaking ; and 
however nauseous and disgusting such expressions 
may seem, when considered as the cant of formality 
and hypocrisy, which speaks without feeling, they 
appear very different, viewed as the real language of 
the heart. Some such expressions are in common 
use among ourselves, though the real meaning is un- 
known, or forgotten, by thousands who adopt them. 
The term Adieu, for instance, signifies, I commend 
you to God ; and even the common expression, Good- 
bye, is an abbreviation or corruption of the pious 
wish, God be with you. We mention these instances 
merely to show how the influence of religion will 
pervade even the common forms and ceremonies of 
society in the day of which we are speaking." 

The Nature and Claims of yehovah. 

" Let us inquire what is due to Jehovah on account 
of his nature. The nature of any being is that, the 
possession of which constitutes him what he is. 
Thus the possession of human nature constitutes a 
man ; the possession of angelic nature constitutes an 



326 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

angel ; and the possession of a divine nature consti- 
tutes God. Now the nature of Jehovah is divine. 
In what it consists or what is its essence, we cannot, 
indeed, tell. We only know some of its properties. 
We know that it is uncreated, self-existent, independ- 
ent, and eternal. It could have no beginning ; for 
there is no cause which could bring a divine nature 
into existence. It can have no end ; for there is no 
cause which can put a period to the existence of 
divinity. And as Jehovah possesses a divine nature, 
so he alone possesses such a nature. He is not only 
God, but God alone. There is no God before him, 
none beside him. In a word, he is the only being 
of the same kind who now exists, who ever has 
existed, or who ever will exist. In this respect he 
differs widely from all other beings. Of those who 
possess human nature, and of those who possess an- 
gelic nature, the number is great. Of course what- 
ever is due to human or angelic nature must be 
divided among a great number of individuals. What- 
ever is due to angelic nature must be divided among 
all the angels. But with respect to Jehovah the case 
is different. He has no partners in the divine nature. 
Of course, there are none to share with him in what 
is due to that nature. All that is due to divinity is 
due to him alone, without division. Here, then, is a 
being who deserves something which is due to no 
other being in the universe, who may justly claim to 
be regarded with affections to which no other being 
has any title. He, therefore, who does not give 
something to Jehovah which he gives to no other 
being does not give unto him the glory which is 
his due. If it be asked, What must be given to 



Selections from his Works. 327 

Jehovah which is given to no other being ? I answer, 
One thing which must be given to him alone is, re- 
ligious worship and adoration. Many other things, 
indeed, are his due, which we shall have occasion to 
notice ; but this is due to him considered simply as 
a being who is by nature God over all. And the 
religious worship which is paid him must be suited 
to his nature. He is by nature a spirit, and must 
therefore, as our Saviour informs, be worshiped in 
spirit and in truth. He is also a most holy spirit, 
and must therefore be worshiped in the beauty of 
holiness, in the exercise of all those holy affections 
which constitute moral beauty and excellence. The 
man who thus worships Jehovah — the man whose 
body, soul, and spirit all bow down before him in 
humble prostration — whose understanding acknowl- 
edges that he is God alone and whose heart adores 
him as God alone, gives unto him the glory which is 
his due on account of his nature." 

The Character of Jehovah. 

" Let us inquire what is due to Jehovah on account 
of the character which he possesses. Now the char- 
acter of Jehovah is absolutely perfect. It is the very 
standard of perfection. We may safely challenge the 
whole created universe to mention or conceive of a 
single beautiful, amiable, admirable, or venerable 
quality which he does not possess in an infinite de- 
gree. Indeed it is certain that no language has even 
a name for any excellent, moral, or intellectual qual- 
ity which is not found in the character of Jehovah. 
And it is worthy of remark, that there is in his char- 
acter something which is suited to excite every proper 



328 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

affection of which the human soul is capable. Are 
we, for instance, capable of feeling veneration and 
awe ? There is something in God's character which 
is suited to excite these emotions. Are we capable 
of feeling admiration ? There is in his character 
every thing to admire. Are we capable of love ? In 
his character there is sufficient to raise the flame of 
love to the highest pitch of intensity. -Are we ca- 
pable of exercising confidence ? His truth and faith- 
fulness may well lead us to confide in him. Are we 
capable of hope ? His mercy is well suited to excite 
it. And can it be necessary to remark, that if any 
being can deserve praise, he who possesses such a 
character as this deserves it ? Is it not most evident 
that he is worthy to be feared, and venerated, and 
admired, and loved, and confided in, with all the 
heart, and soul, and mind, and strength ? Now to 
regard him with all these affections, and to express 
these affections in fervent, humble praise, extolling 
him as infinitely great, and powerful, and wise, and 
good, and merciful, and true, is to give him the glory 
which is due to his character. Of him who thus 
offers praise, God says, He glorifieth me." 

God's Works of Providence Demand our Praise. 

" God's works of providence display infinitely great- 
er wisdom, skill, power, and goodness than all the 
works of men. We admire the ability displayed by 
a commander who regulates, without confusion, all 
the motions of a numerous army ; by a monarch who 
skillfully manages all the concerns of an extensive 
and populous empire. But what is this compared 
with the wisdom, knowledge, and power which are 



Selections from his Works. 329 

exhibited by Jehovah in the preservation, control, 
and government of all his innumerable hosts, and his 
almost boundless empire ! He must every moment 
see every thing which takes place in the universe ; 
every feeling, thought, word, and action of each of 
his creatures, and every motion of each particle of 
matter. He must not only see all these things, but 
he must never forget them. He must not only see 
and remember them, but direct and overrule them all 
in such a manner as shall cause them to work to- 
gether for the accomplishment of his own purposes 
and for the good of those who love him. He must 
also foresee, and be able to foretell, every thing which 
will take place, with the time and manner in which 
it will occur. In fine, he must be continually work- 
ing in every place ; and the past and the future — 
heaven, earth, and hell — all time and all space, with 
all which they contain — must be constantly present 
to his view. And O, what a mind must that be 
which, without effort and without confusion, can at- 
tend at once to such an infinite variety of objects and 
events, and direct and control them all in the wisest 
and best possible manner ! 

" Equally wonderful is the display of moral excel- 
lences which God's works of providence exhibit. We 
admire the bounty of a man who feeds a hundred 
poor families from his table. But God every day 
feeds the whole family of man, together with all the 
inferior animals, besides bestowing on them number- 
less additional blessings. We admire the magna- 
nimity and generosity of an earthly monarch who 
forgives rebels and traitors when they lie at his mercy. 
But God has forgiven millions of the worst of rebels, 



330 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

adopted them as his children, and made them his 
heirs. We extol the condescension of a sovereign 
who, on one day in the week, orders his palace gates 
to be thrown open for the admission of petitioners. 
But the ear of the King of kings is every moment 
open to the petitions of the meanest slave who crawls 
upon his fobtstool. We justly admire and venerate 
St. Paul, who was the instrument of converting and 
saving some thousands of immortal souls. But God, 
as the sole efficient agent, has converted and saved 
many millions of our race, and is still daily convert- 
ing and saving more. 

"There is another point of view in which the 
superiority of the works of God to those of men ap- 
pears, if possible, still more evident. He is the real 
author of all the admirable and excellent works which 
men perform. He gave them all the abilities by 
which these works are performed, prompted them to 
attempt the performance, and then crowned their at- 
tempts with success. All the writers who have en- 
lightened the world were but as a pen guided by him. 
All the great men who have delivered their country- 
men from oppression were but a sword in his hand 
to cut off oppressors. All the inventors and im- 
provers of useful arts were indebted to him for all 
iheir inventions and improvements. And all the 
good men who have blessed the world by their ex- 
ample and their exertions owed all their goodness 
and all their success to him. He is also the author, 
the dispenser of all the happiness which has ever 
been enjoyed on earth or in heaven. He gave us 
senses capable of being gratified, and provided for 
them their appropriate gratifications. He gave us 



Selections from his Works. 331 

our intellectual faculties, and placed before them ob- 
jects in the contemplation and acquisition of which 
they might find pleasure. He made us capable of 
affections which it is delightful to exercise, and gave 
relations and friends toward whom those affections 
may flow out. And all religious enjoyments, all the 
happiness of heaven, proceed directly from him. 

In fine, he is constantly doing good, doing it on 
the largest scale, doing it not merely to individuals, 
families, and nations, but to whole worlds and sys- 
tems at once. 

" Now, if we would give God the glory which is 
due to him on account of his works, we must ac- 
knowledge that he performs all the works which have 
been mentioned, and, with suitable admiration and 
affection, render unto him the praises and thanks- 
givings which such works deserve. But what creat- 
ure, or what combination of creatures, can give him 
all the praise and thanksgiving which such works 
deserve ? If we praise the sculptor who merely 
forms the image of a man, how can we sufficiently 
praise Him who created not only the sculptor him- 
self, but ten thousand thousand other forms glowing 
with life, and radiant in beauty! If we admire the 
painter who skillfully delineates a landscape or a 
human countenance, what admiration is due to the 
divine Artist who spreads out his canvas over the 
whole earth, and, with colors dyed in heaven, makes 
it all one grand landscape, in which all that is beauti- 
ful and all that is sublime are exhibited in contrast 
or harmoniously blended ! If we extol the historian, 
the poet, the orator, the philosopher, how can we 
sufficiently extol Him who created and gave them all 



332 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

their powers ! If we admire the astronomer who dis- 
covers the motions of the heavenly bodies, how shall 
we sufficiently admire Him who lighted up the firma- 
ment with suns and planets, and guides Arcturus 
with his suns ! If we applaud the man who preserves 
the life of a single fellow-creature, what applauses are 
due to that God who daily preserves all creatures and 
all worlds in being ! If no praises are thought too 
great for the patriot who delivers his country from 
temporal bondage, what praises are sufficient for 
Him who offers to a ruined and enslaved world de- 
liverance from sin and misery, and death and hell ? 
O, never, never can any creature, nor all creatures 
combined, give God the whole glory which his works 
deserve ; not though they should spend an eternity 
in praising him ! All they can do is, to give him 
all that they have, to acknowledge that he alone is 
worthy to be praised, that all glory and honor are his 
due, and to combine all their powers and all their 
affections and exertions in forming one refulgent, 
unequaled crown, not to be placed on his head, for it 
would be unworthy, but to be cast at his feet !" 

A Deluge of Blessings. 

"As soon as the world was created, see the win- 
dows of heaven opened above it, and all the fullness 
of the Godhead gushing forth, and pouring down 
upon it in a torrent a flood of blessings — rich, various, 
inestimable blessings. Without cessation or diminu- 
tion this flood has ever since continued to flow, as if 
all heaven were to be poured out upon earth ; while, 
in its descent, the deluge divides into as many 
streams as there are individuals in our world a 



Selections from his Works. 333 

constant stream falls upon each. My hearers, were 
GocTs blessings waters, they would long ere this have 
risen more than fifteen cubits above the summits of 
the highest mountains. Now look at the returns 
which men have made for all this deluge of blessings. 
From a comparatively small number of families and 
individuals scattered here and there, see a few clouds 
of incense, a few imperfect offerings, praises, and 
thanksgivings, slowly ascending to heaven. And is 
this all ? Yes, my hearers, this is all ; all the returns 
which men have made to God for blessings without 
number and without measure ; and for the unspeak- 
able gift of his Son." 

Transient Emotions. 

" In the spring of the year, when God seems to 
repeat his work of creation, and, in the language of 
the Psalmist, renews the face of the earth ; when his 
unseen but swiftly-moving pencil repairs the ravages 
of winter — restores to faded nature the colors, the 
bloom, the freshness of youth, and adorns with un- 
1 rivaled tints the forest and the field ; — when all is 
mildness and serenity ; when the whole landscape 
smiles, and happy warblers give it a thousand tongues, 
making every grove resound with the expressions of 
their joy; who has not felt his breast swell with 
emotions which resembled, and which he, perhaps, 
fondly called, love and gratitude to the Creator, ad- 
miration of his works, and delight in his perfections ? 
But, alas, how transient, how unproductive of salu- 
tary effects, have all these emotions proved ! Appe- 
tite and passion, though hushed for a moment, soon 
renewed their importunities ; the glitter of wealth, 



334 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

and distinction, and power eclipsed, in our view, the 
glories of Jehovah ; we sunk from that heaven toward 
which we seemed rising, to plunge afresh into the 
vortex of earthly pleasures and pursuits ; we neg- 
lected and disobeyed Him whom we had been ready 
to adore, and continued to live without God, in a 
world which we had just seen to be full of his glory. 
The rays of that glory, darting upon our minds, en- 
kindled, indeed, a sudden flame ; and the flame thus 
kindled flashed up toward heaven, but sunk and ex- 
pired with the flash. Thus we sang God's praise, 
but soon forgot his works. Our emotions were of 
precisely the same nature with those which are ex- 
cited by some grand display of human powers ; and, 
like them, they produce no reformation of conduct, 
no amelioration of the heart." 

God's Works of Grace Soon Forgotten. 

" God's works of grace most clearly display not 
only the natural but the moral perfections of Jehovah. 
Here his character shines, full-orbed and complete. 
Here all the fullness of the Godhead, all the insuffer- 
able splendors of Deity, burst at once upon our 
'aching sight/ Here the manifold perfections of 
Jehovah — holiness and goodness, justice and mercy, 
truth and grace, majesty and condescension, hatred 
of sin and compassion for sinners — -are harmoniously 
blended, like the many colored rays of solar light, in 
one pure blaze of dazzling whiteness. Here every 
thing that is suited to arrest the attention, to en- 
lighten and convince the understanding, to seize the 
imagination or to melt the heart, is made to bear 
upon us with an energy which it would seem impos- 



Selections from his Works. 335 

sible to resist. That an exhibitition of these won- 
ders should make, at least, a temporary impression 
upon our minds, is no more than might naturally be 
expected. When the glorious glad tidings of the 
blessed God are proclaimed in our ears ; when the 
riches of his grace, the fullness of his condescension, 
compassion, and love are poured out before us from 
a heart which has felt their influence, by ' lips which 
have been touched as with a live coal from the altar 
of God ; ' when with a pencil dipped in the vivid 
colors which inspiration affords, he is drawn in the 
attitude of an affectionate father, grieved at once by 
the sins and the miseries of his children, beseeching 
them in the kindest language of entreaty to return, 
and giving them a Saviour in the Son of his love ; 
when the beauties, the glories, and the sufferings of 
that Saviour are portrayed by one who has sat at the 
foot of the cross, and seen the glory of God in the 
face of Jesus Christ ; when, with a countenance full 
of invitation, compassion, and love, this divine Friend 
of sinners stands and woos them to himself, assuring 
all who will come of a kind reception, and freely 
offering rewards such as eye has not seen nor ear 
heard ; — when these rewards are displayed ; when 
the immortal glories of an opening heaven are made 
to shine around us ; when the echo of its triumph- 
ant songs vibrates upon our ears ; when kingdoms, 
crowns, and thrones, eternal as their Bestower, are 
presented to our view ; it is almost impossible that 
even our obdurate hearts should be always unaffected, 
or retain their characteristic insensibility. For a 
moment they seem to be melted. We feel, and are 
ready to acknowledge, that God is good ; that the 



336 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

Saviour is kind ; that his love ought to be returned ; 
that heaven is desirable. Like a class of hearers 
described by our great Teacher, we receive the word 
with joy ; a joy not unmingled with something which 
resembles gratitude ; and we sing, or feel as if we 
could with pleasure sing, God's praises. But we 
leave his house ; the emotions there excited subside ; 
like the earth when partially softened by a wintry 
sun, our hearts soon regain their icy hardness ; the 
wonders of divine grace are forgotten ; and God has 
reason to say in sorrow and in displeasure, Your 
goodness is as the morning cloud ; and as the early 
dew it goeth away." 

The Character of Our National Religion. 

" Little as there appears to be of religion in the 
world, there is much less in reality than in appear- 
ance. In men who possess some real goodness, a 
single grain of gold gilds a large surface of baser 
materials ; while in other men, varnish and tinsel 
supply the place of the gold. Much of the religion 
even of good men consists of merely animal emotions 
and natural affections, baptized by a Christian name ; 
and all the religion of other men, if we except exter- 
nal forms, is of the same character of our national 
religion, if we can be said to have any. As a nation 
we treat Jehovah very much as heathen nations treat 
their gods, only with less apparent respect and ven- 
eration. We compliment him, as they do their gods, 
with the name and attributes of divinity. We pub- 
licly implore his aid, as they do that of their idols, 
when evils oppress or dangers threaten us. When 
relief is obtained, we, like them, have public seasons 



Selections from his Works. 337 

of thanksgiving and offerings of praise ; and our 
festivals, like theirs, are marked by sensual indul- 
gences, and followed by no reformation of national 
sins. What, then, are we to think of our annual 
seasons of thanksgiving? In what light must we 
suppose they are regarded by Him whose judgment 
is according to truth ? Must he not, in view of every 
thing by which they are attended and followed, re- 
gard them as a mere empty form ; as the copy of a 
heathen festival ; or, at best, as only a repetition of 
the insincere praises of Israel ? Must he not regard 
them as an earthly monarch would regard a book in- 
scribed to him on the title-page, and preceded by a 
preface filled with flattery, but containing on every 
following page a gross libel on his character and 
government? Like such a book, this day is dedi- 
cated to God. Like such a preface, it is filled with 
his praise ; while every other day of the year, like 
every other page of the book, speaks a language most 
offensive to his ear. Mistake me not, however. I 
would be far from insinuating or entertaining a wish, 
that this custom, established by our pious fathers, 
should be discontinued. I only wish that its original 
character may be restored ; that it may become the 
preface to a whole volume of praise ; that the stream 
of gratitude which seems to burst forth so copiously 
on this day may continue to flow, though more 
silently, through the year." 

The Existence of the World Accounted For, 

" One of the most acute philosophical authors of 

antiquity, writing on this subject, informs us that an 

infinite number of atoms had existed from all eter- 

22 



338 * Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

nity; that somehow or other these atoms were put 
in motion, and that while moving about they hap- 
pened to come together and form a world, out of 
which plants, animals, and men spontaneously sprang 
up. But perhaps some will say, These were the senti- 
ments of men in the early and ignorant ages of the 
world. Since reason has been more cultivated and 
learning has increased men know better than to be- 
lieve such absurdities. We will reply to this remark, 
by giving you a modern theory respecting the forma- 
tion of the world ; a theory which has been invented, 
published, and defended within a few years, by some 
of the most learned philosophers of the age. Accord- 
ing to this theory, the sun had either existed from all 
eternity or was formed nobody knows how, and a 
comet, made and put in motion in a similar way, 
passing by the sun struck off a large piece of it by a 
blow of its tail, and by the same blow communicated 
to the piece thus struck off a rotary motion, which 
caused it to revolve till it acquired a globular form. 
All this happened many millions of years ago, and 
during this period the new-made world, being made 
to revolve round the sun, collected all the particles 
of dust which came in its way, till it had acquired 
soil sufficient to support plants, animals, and men, 
which sprang up upon it, one after the other. In a 
similar way all other planets were formed. As to 
the moon, that was once a part of this world, and was 
blown out of it by a tremendous volcano, whose fires 
are now quenched. Indeed, others suppose that this 
world and all the planets were, in a similar manner, 
blown out of the sun. Such are the theories of those 
whom the world styles philosophers ; such the ab- 



Selections from his Works. 339 

surdities into which grave and learned men are left 
to fall when they renounce the Scriptures. And if 
we renounce the Scriptures what can we do better 
than adopt some of these theories ? Human reason, 
unenlightened by revelation, can invent no better, no 
more plausible way of accounting for the creation of 
the world and its inhabitants. If you ask, Why can- 
not men without the Bible allow that there is a God, 
who created all things ? I answer, I am not obliged 
to show why they cannot. It is sufficient for me to 
show, that without a revelation they do not, and 
never have done this. This it is easy to show. It 
is easy to prove, by appealing to history and to facts, 
that no nation under heaven, either in the first ages 
or the present day, has been able to form a rational 
or even a plausible conjecture respecting the origin 
of the world ; much less to arrive at any thing that 
could be called knowledge on this subject." 

"If the Bible Be Not Truer 

" If we were without the Bible, or if the Bible could 
be proved to be false, we should know nothing of a 
future state or of the immortality of the soul. Rea- 
son can never prove that the soul is immortal, or 
that the body will be raised again. This is evident 
from the facts, that she never has been able to dis- 
cover either of these truths, and that even at the 
present day many learned men deny them both. It 
is not long since the representatives of a numerous 
civilized nation ordered the words, * death is an eter- 
nal sleep/ to be inserted over the portals of their 
grave-yards. Indeed, if there be a future state, an 
eternal world, into which the soul enters after death, 



340 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

no one but an inhabitant of that world can assure us 
of the fact ; for it is not an object of our senses, nor 
can it be discovered by reasoning. All that men 
ever have done, all that they can do, without a reve- 
lation from God, is to conjecture, or at most to sup- 
pose it probable, that there is a future state, and that 
the soul is immortal. But these conjectures and 
surmises are of no use. They are too weak to build 
upon. In fact, they only serve to produce uneasiness 
and anxiety in the prospect of death ; for while they 
lead men to suspect that there possibly may be a 
future state, they can afford them no shadow of in- 
formation respecting that state. They cannot tell us 
whether we shall be happy or miserable there. And 
if we reflect calmly on the subject, we shall find much 
more reason to fear misery than to hope for happi- 
ness in a future state. We find this world full of 
evils. We suffer much in passing through it ; we 
find the causes of these evils and sufferings deeply 
rooted in our nature. We see most of those who die 
appear to die in pain. Who, then, can assure us, or 
what reason have we to hope, that the other world 
will be less full of evil than this ; that we shall not 
suffer there as much or more than we suffer here ; 
that the seeds of sorrow and suffering which are 
sown in our nature will be eradicated ; that those 
who die in pain will, after death, taste nothing but 
pleasure ? Without the Bible we can have no reason 
to hope for happiness after death. The best we can 
rationally hope for, if the Bible be false, is to die like 
the brutes, to plunge into the gulf of annihilation. 
In fact, this is all which those who reject the Bible 
usually do hope for ; and even their hope of this, if 



Selections from his Works. 341 

that may be called hope which seems more like de- 
spair, is not imfrequently mingled with distressing 
fears of something worse. And as annihilation is 
the best fate we can rationally expect for ourselves 
if the Bible be false, so it is the best which we can 
suppose to have happened to our departed friends. 
Yes, if the Bible be not true, you may well sorrow 
over their remains as those that have no hope. You 
will never see them again. Their minds as well as 
their bodies are dead. All that once pleased and 
delighted you, all that excited your admiration or en- 
gaged your affections, is put out like last night's 
lamp, quenched in everlasting night. This, too, if 
the Bible be not true, is, for aught you can tell, the 
fate of all who have gone before us. They who have 
fallen asleep in Christ are perished. The good and 
the bad, they who while alive ravaged, and they who 
blessed, the world ; they who expired uttering the 
language of execration and despair, and they whose 
expiring lips poured forth the seraphic strains of that 
heaven which they saw opening to their view, have 
all sunk down alike into eternal darkness and insen- 
sibility. But why do I talk of heaven ? If the Bible 
be not true there is no heaven — none for us, none of 
which we know any thing. . Life and immortality have 
never been brought to light. He who professed to 
reveal them, and who called himself the Saviour of 
the world, was an impostor ; the Gospel of salvation, 
the only real glad tidings which ever vibrated upon 
mortal man, is a cheat ; the apostles who preached 
it, and the martyrs who sealed it with their blood, 
were deluded ; and all the apparent holiness which 
it has produced in life, and all the joy and triumph 



342 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

which its disciples have expressed at death, were 
nothing but the effects of superstition and enthusiasm. 
But this is not all ; for if the Bible be not true, then 
we have no ground to hope that good will ever be 
brought out of evil, or that any of our afflictions will 
be productive of the smallest advantage either to 
ourselves or to others. Then we have no Father, no 
Saviour, no Friend above to pity our sorrows, to hear 
our complaints, to support us by his power, or to 
guide us by his wisdom. What is still more discour- 
aging, we have no reason to hope that the situation 
of our wretched race will ever be ameliorated, or 
their miseries ever come to an end. Nothing can be 
rationally anticipated but an endless succession of 
the same crimes, wars, revolutions, and convulsions 
which have so long filled the world with blood, and 
the hearts of its inhabitants with anguish ; for there 
is not the smallest reason to suppose that mankind 
are really wiser or better now than they were thirty 
centuries ago. If at present any appearances which 
encourage us to hope for the prevalence of peace are 
to be seen, they are occasioned solely by the influ- 
ence of the Bible. But if this be false its influence 
cannot long continue to operate. Men will burst its 
bands and go on as before. Despair, then, you who 
sorrow, for you never will be comforted. Despair 
ye who weep for the miseries of man, for there is no 
hope that they will ever end. Despair ye who are 
looking with anxious eyes for the dawn of a brighter 
day, for no day is ever to dawn on this wretched 
world. There is no Star of Bethlehem, no Sun of 
righteousness, to rise and shine upon it with healing 
in his beams. No ; it is destined to be shrouded for 



Selections from his Works. 343 

ever in sevenfold night, a night without a star, with- 
out a moon, without a morning! Rejoice, then, ye 
wicked, for ye will never be punished ! Despair, ye 
good, for ye will never be rewarded ! " 

The Certainty of a Future Judgment — Argument. 

"No proposition of natural or revealed religion, 
not even that which regards the existence of a God, 
is accompanied with more convincing evidence than 
this. They are indeed truths necessarily and insep- 
arably connected ; for it is evident almost to demon- 
stration, that he who created must govern, and that 
he who governs must judge, the world. We cannot 
possibly suppose that an infinitely wise Being would 
create man and then leave him to himself, or to the 
sport of blind accident. No, he must have had some 
suitable design in his creation ; and the only design 
of a Being infinitely holy, just, and good, of which 
we can form any conception, is his own glory as 
connected with the greatest possible happiness of his 
creatures. To accomplish this design, certain laws 
and regulations are necessary ; and if his creatures 
disobey these regulations, all his perfections join in 
requiring that they should be restrained and pun- 
ished. Experience, however, abundantly shows that 
in this world no adequate punishment is inflicted ; 
that there is little or no apparent distinction between 
the bad and the good, but that all things come alike 
to all ; that there is one event to the righteous and 
to the wicked, to him that serveth God and him that 
serveth him not. Hence it appears that there must 
be a future day of recompense and retribution, when 
God will vindicate his own character, reward his 



344 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

faithful friends, and convince the assembled world 
that his righteous laws are not to be violated with 
impunity." 

Christ Coming to Judgment. 

" It is certainly highly fit and proper that He who 
made and redeemed should also judge the world ; 
and that he who humbled himself below all creatures 
should also be exalted above all, so that to him every 
knee shall bow and every tongue confess him Lord, 
to the praise and glory of God the Father. Then 
will his exaltation be complete. Every thing will 
then manifestly appear to be put under him. The 
glory in which he will then appear will be greater 
than he has ever yet assumed, greater than we could 
support the sight of, while clothed with mortality. 
At the creation he was surrounded by hosts of morn- 
ing stars, who sang together, and the sons of God, 
who shouted for joy ; and at the dispensation of the 
law on Sinai he was arrayed in all the majesty and 
terror which the elements could afford. But on this 
still more awful occasion he will come, not in his 
own glory only, but in that of his Father and the 
holy angels. Heaven will pour forth all her armies 
to grace his triumph, and spread around him all her 
ineffable glories in one unremitted blaze of splen- 
dor, before which the sun will fade away, and even 
archangels vail their faces ; while, 

1 From his keen glance affrighted worlds retire ; 
He speaks in thunder and he breathes in fire.' 

His countenance, like the pillar of cloud between the 
Israelites and Egyptians, will present a double ap- 



Selections from his Works. 345 

pearance ; and though clothed with the rainbow of 
peace toward his friends, it will lower on his enemies 
like a stormy sky ; and while his eye, at every glance, 
pours upon the former a flood of joy, it will flash 
lightnings on the latter, which will scorch their in- 
most souls, and fill them with unutterable, inconceiv- 
able anguish. Then shall he come in the clouds of 
heaven, and every eye shall see him. Then shall all 
the tribes of the earth mourn, and they who con- 
demned him as guilty of blasphemy will find — to 
their eternal shame and confusion will find — that he 
uttered a solemn truth when he said, ' Hereafter ye 
shall see the Son of man sitting on the right hand 
of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven to 
judge the world at the last day/ Then shall his 
murderers find that he whom they buffeted, scourged, 
mocked, and crucified, was indeed the Lord of life 
and glory; and they, with all who have since de- 
spised and all who are now despising his offered 
grace, will then be convinced by their own sad ex- 
perience that whosoever falls on this stone shall be 
broken, and that on whomsoever it shall fall it will 
grind him to powder." 

The Persons to Be Judged. 

" The persons who will be judged are the whole 
human race, for we must all appear. There will be 
no exceptions. In vain shall any call upon the 
mountains to fall on them and the hills to cover 
them. Flight, resistance, threats, and entreaties will 
alike be vain. There must appear rulers, with their 
subjects ; parents, with their children ; ministers, 
with their people ; masters, with their servants ; and 



346 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

blind guides, with their blinded followers. There 
will be present all who have lived in the world, from 
creation down to the present day; there our first 
parents will contemplate, with various emotions, the 
long t line of their descendants, while they, on the 
other hand, will behold their common father. There 
will be found the inhabitants of the old world, the 
men of Sodom and Gomorrah, the host of Pharaoh, 
with their proud king, and the ancient inhabitants 
of Canaan, with the Israelites, their rebellious and 
idolatrous successors. There will be seen Noah 
and Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, Enoch and Elijah, 
Joseph and Moses, with all the other patriarchs 
and prophets, in a long succession. There will also 
be assembled the proud, cruel, hypocritical phari- 
sees, with the priests and rulers who, with such 
inveterate malice, persecuted Him who will then be 
their Judge. There Pilate, with Herod, shall appear 
before Him who once stood at his iniquitous tri- 
bunal, and receive the reward of his injustice and 
cowardice. There will be found all of whom we 
read in profane and sacred history ; the apostles and 
martyrs, with their persecutors ; the famous heroes 
and conquerors, who have so often deluged the world 
with blood, and were highly esteemed among men, 
but were an abomination in the sight of the Lord ; 
the statesmen, the philosophers, and great ones of 
the earth, with all that is noble, all that is vile among 
mankind. 

" Further, there will be present all who are now 
on the earth, they who now fill the mouths of men 
with their greatness, and think this world too narrow 
for their fame ; they who are now envied for their 



Selections from his Works. 347 

beauty, wealth, honors, or accomplishments ; they 
who now excite the love or hatred, the hopes or fears, 
the admiration or contempt of mankind, will then 
stand out in their naked characters. All disguises 
will then be stripped off, all human distinctions will 
be destroyed, and the only difference which will then 
be of any avail is the grand, the eternal distinction 
between saints and sinners. The scoffers who are 
now asking Where is the promise of his coming? 
who have wasted their lives and abused their talents 
in neglecting or denying a future judgment, will 
find to their cost, that, verily there is a God who 
judge th in the earth, and that while they have been 
following lying vanities, they have forsaken their 
own mercies and destroyed themselves, with all their 
disciples." 

The Things for Which Men are to Be Judged, 

"The things for which this innumerable multi- 
tude will be called to give an account are, as we 
learn from our text, all the things done here in the 
body, whether good or bad. By the things done in 
the body, are intended not only external actions, 
but also words and the thoughts and intents of the 
heart. Of every idle word that men shall speak, 
says the Judge, shall they give an account in the 
day of judgment. God shall bring every secret thing 
into judgment, and will judge the secrets of men 
by Christ Jesus. The great rule by which these 
things will be tried is the divine law ; and how 
this law will be interpreted our Saviour has him- 
self informed us. He has declared that every sinful 
desire is no less a breach of its requirements, and 



348 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

no less exposes us to its dreadful curse, than the 
most open violation ; and he will condemn as breakers 
of the sixth command, not only all actual murder- 
ers, but all who have at any time indulged feelings 
of malice, hatred, envy, or revenge against their 
neighbors. Not only all adulterers and adulteresses, 
but all who have not maintained the strictest purity 
in thought, word, and deed, will also fall under his just 
condemnation. He who has coveted, as well as he 
who has actually stolen, his neighbor's property will 
be found guilty. Nay more ; not only they who hate 
God and their neighbor, but they who do not love 
God with all their heart, soul, strength, and mind, 
and their neighbor as themselves, must be con- 
demned by the law of God. It is highly worthy of 
notice, that in all the descriptions which our Saviour 
has given of the day of judgment he represents him- 
self as dooming sinners to the fire prepared for the 
devil and his angels, not for what the world call 
crimes — not for injuring their fellow-creatures or dis- 
turbing the peace of society — but for being unprofit- 
able servants, for neglecting to feed the hungry, 
clothe the naked, to receive the stranger, and visit 
the sick. It is not so much against sins of commis- 
sion that threatenings are denounced in the word of 
God. He that believeth not shall be damned. Ex- 
cept ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish. Not only 
every tree that bringeth forth bad fruit, but every 
tree that does not bring forth good fruit, shall be 
hewn down and cast into the fire. These regulations 
may seem, and, indeed, must seem to the unhumbled 
heart too rigid and severe ; but if the word of God 
be true, if Christ the Judge abide by his own positive 



Selections from his Works. 349 

declarations, by these regulations must every thought, 
word, and action be tried. To this standard must 
the conduct of every individual be brought. In this 
balance must every individual be weighed." 

The First Object that will Rush upon the Mind at 

Death. 

" The soul when it leaves the body will find itself 
in a moment in the presence of the great Sun of the 
universe, whose beams, like a torrent, pervade im- 
mensity and eternity. Sun, moon, and stars will all 
have vanished. Earth and its objects will appear to 
have been suddenly annihilated, and God, God alone, 
will rush in upon the mind and fill every faculty, 
occupy every thought. Above and below, behind 
and before, wherever the mind can turn itself or 
whithersoever roam, it will still find itself in the im- 
mediate presence of God ; nor, if I may so express 
it, can the eyelids of the soul ever close for an instant 
to shut out the dazzling refulgence of his glory. As 
companions in admiring, or in shrinking with despair 
from, these glories, the soul will perceive itself to be 
surrounded by myriads of created spirits of opposite 
characters, and will quickly find that the same God 
who, to holy spirits, is a refreshing, animating light, 
is, to the unholy, a consuming fire ; that what is 
heaven to the one, is hell to the other." 

Mortal, Yet Immortal 

" My brethren, through the great change we have 
been considering you must all pass. Your bodies 
must be changed. In a few years, of all the bodies 
which now fill this house nothing but a few hands- 



350 Mementoes of Edward Payson. 

full of dust will remain. Your mode of existence 
will be changed. Your disembodied, but still living, 
spirits will pass into a new and untried state of 
being. Your place of residence will be changed. 
The places which now know you will soon know 
you no more. Another assembly will fill this house. 
Other inhabitants will dwell in your habitations. 
Other names will glitter over the marts of busi- 
ness, and yours will be transferred to the tombstone. 
And when this world has lost you another will 
have received you. After you are dead and forgot- 
ten here, you will be alive, and capable of exquisite 
happiness or misery elsewhere. After you are re- 
moved from all the objects which now affect you, a 
new world, new objects, new beings will rise upon 
you, and affect you in a manner far more powerful 
than you are or can be now affected. Above all, 
when this world and all that it contains sink from 
your view, God, that Being of whom you have heard 
so much and, perhaps, thought so little — that Being 
who formed and now invisibly surrounds and upholds 
you will burst in upon and fill your mind, fill it with 
delight inconceivable or agony unutterable, according 
to the state of your moral character. And as it affects 
you the moment after death, so it will continue to 
affect you forever ; for neither his character nor yours 
will ever change. Long after all remembrance of 
you shall have been blotted from the earth, during all 
the remaining centuries which the sun may measure 
out to succeeding generations of mortals, you will 
still be bathing with delight or writhing in agony 
in the beams of Jehovah's presence. And even after 
this world shall have ceased to exist, when sun and 



Selections from his Works. 351 

stars are quenched in endless night, you will still 
continue the same individual, conscious being that 
you now are, and will still bear, and through eternity 
will continue to bear, that stamp of moral character 
with all its consequences in which you are found, and 
in which you will be unchangeably fixed, by death." 



THE END. 



OPINIONS OP THE PRESS. 



LESLEY HIS OWN UlSTORIAN 



Illustrations of his Character, Labors, and Achievements. From 
his own Diaries. By Rev. E. L. Janes. 12njo. $1 50. 

Among the testimonials of the value of this book is the following 
from the venerable and highly-esteemed Dr. Sprague, of the Presby- 
terian Church : 

" My dear Mr. Janes : I was certainly very sincere in my expres- 
sions of thanks to you when you gave me the volume which you had 
compiled from the works of John Wesley, but I confess I had no ade- 
quate appreciation of the favor until I had an opportunity of reading 
it. You make us feel that we are verily in contact with the illustrious 
man, hearing his deliverances and witnessing his movements; and 
though as a Presbyterian I might not be able to indorse every word 
that I find in the book, yet, as a Christian, I can cordially recommend 
the volume, and I am sure it will be most gratefully welcomed by 
every evangelical denomination." 

" We give it up. A diary is at last made into one of the most 
readable of books. Wesley's Journals are served up anew, and make 
a delicious ragout . . . Whoever would catch a glimpse of the labors, 
cheerfulness, devotion, steadfastness, and wisdom — every thing that 
seemed to shine in his character and career — should read this volume." 
— Ziori's Herald. 

" Mr. Janes has here executed a most happy thought, and he might 
have styled his book, 'Wesley's Journals, Abridged.' 1 He has, with 
excellent judgment and tact, made such selections as exhibit the real 
Wesley, himself speaking, writing, preaching, traveling, and making 
his own record of the facts and of his impressions." — Chris. Advocate. 

" This work has been selected with great care and arranged with 
skill, and makes a most interesting volume." — Northwestern Advocate. 



^ • » » 



|0KAKACTEK % jJaWEER OF ^RANCIS 0-SBURY. 

Illustrated by Numerous Selections from his Journal, arranged in 
Chronological Order. By Rev. E. L. Janes. 12mo., pp. 615. $2. 

Rev. Bishop Haven, in Ziorts Herald of May 23, has devoted more 
than a column in giving a notice of this work. He says : "Rev. Mr. 
Janes has done for Asbury what he did so well for Wesley — made 
him his own historian. He has taken his Journals and gone over 
them, uniting, arranging, and harmonizing them. This book is crowded 
with interest ; every page is alive." 

"The Journal of Bishop Asbury, taken as a whole, form rather dry 
reading, being often the bare recital of his immense horseback tours 
of apostolic service, with the scenes and texts of his almost daily 
preaching. To cull the incidents of permanent interest and value out 
of many pages of unimportant details is work that has long awaited 
some loving hand among the thousands of the spiritual children of this 
consecrated man. That reverent and affectionate disciple has been 
found — B,ev. B. K. Peirce, D.D., Editor Zioris Herald. 



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